Lorenzo, Toronto
It goes without saying that the pandemic turned the world of teaching upside down.
For the past two years, many trends have emerged, for example working remotely or making your own bread.
I always strive to bring the outside world into the classroom, so I decided to discuss the emerging trends with my students.
I would like to propose six topics I have covered in the past two years.
- Hustle and bustle in the kitchen – going from eating out to ordering in, to making our own bread
2. Zoom fatigue – feeling sluggish in front of the computer after endless meetings
3. Influencers – the question whether being an influencer is a real job
4. Quarantine romances – love relationships formed right before the pandemic
5. WFH – the differences between working in the office versus working from home versus working hybrid
6. Skin hunger – the lack of human touch due to the restrictions
Depending on the lesson aim, my students worked on:
- expressing preferences/opinions and providing reasons
- agreeing/disagreeing
- comparing and contrasting
- explaining cause and effect
I hope these topics will give my fellow teachers some inspiration for their lessons.
Zsófia, Hungary
What is it like to teach English in Hungary, Central Europe? I have to admit that it can be challenging at times, given the fact that our mother tongue, Hungarian, doesn’t show the slightest resemblance to any of the European languages. Therefore, learners sometimes have difficulties understanding the logic and the structure of a foreign language. No matter what, English is taught in almost every school from the age of 6 or 7, so more and more people speak English in Hungary by the time they are adults.
I work at Bornemisza Péter High School in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. I teach teenagers who, during their studies, prepare for different levels of language exams, final exams and, of course, for life. I am part of a fantastic team in my high school, where every colleague supports the others. It is quite common that we share our teaching ideas and special resources with each other, go and visit each other’s lessons to get more ideas and thus improve our own teaching methods.
During the pandemic, I experienced a rapid boost in my IT skills and knowledge of online platforms, which I continued using after the lockdown in face-to-face classes too. It’s quite funny, but many times it was my students who helped me with how to use some of the functions in Zoom, but I am open to learning new things from my students.
As an extra activity, I recently joined a new project which I am really proud of: Ukraine Space. Together with many other amazing volunteer teachers, we hold English lessons for Ukrainian people fleeing the war. They can get together in a safe and welcoming place and benefit from this opportunity, which we hope will help them get back on their feet in this situation. The courses (from complete Beginner to Intermediate level) have been running since the end of April and it is an amazing feeling to spend time with our lovely learners and be there for them during these times.
Gunther, Azerbaijan
I have been teaching listening and speaking courses for English for Academic and Professional Purposes, at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (ADA) University, for over seven years. The global pandemic led my colleagues and I into much previously uncharted territory. Thanks to the wonderful foresight of our Director of Academic Administration and Faculty Affairs, online conferencing options were quickly added to the Blackboard Learn LMS we had already been using.
Azerbaijan is a fascinating place to live, work and even play (backgammon, the Caspian Sea, ski slopes, amazing traditions, etc.) No longer a Soviet country, it welcomes more and more tourists each year. With its increasing presence on the world stage comes a need for high quality English language instruction and international relations.
During our one-and-a-half years of completely online instruction, I greatly expanded my skill set in the areas of social and emotional learning, as well as in usage of digital technology for deep learning and not just as eye candy. Together, these have further enabled me to tackle with confidence the challenges brought about by a new phenomenon experienced the world over: hybrid classes.
My inspiration for teaching many of the future leaders of this country where East truly meets West stems not only from their optimism and yearning for innovation, but from the trust that has been afforded to my peers and me, in order to reflect on and hold onto the best of our teaching triumphs as we effect real change.
David, Angola
‘A phonemic chart from Angola’ is the title of my first article that originally appeared in the Africa ELTA Newsletter, June 2019, and then in IATEFL Voices, January/February 2020. A lot of things have happened since its publication in the English language teaching setting in Angola.
Pronunciation has always been one of the most ignored things in the field of ELT by most teachers around the world, and it is not different in Angola. The reason for that, for some teachers, has been lack of time, and for others, they do not know when and how to teach it, and, as a result, students have been struggling to work on pronunciation on their own through songs, films, etc.
It has been three years since the publication of my phonemic chart. Before its publication, there were very few teachers who used to teach pronunciation effectively in Angola. Furthermore, there were something like four schools that used to have the Sound Bank from English File in the classroom. Although some teachers are still refraining from including pronunciation in their lessons (and so not using my chart due to lack of a solid teacher training course which could empower them with skills that would allow them incorporate pronunciation), currently there are more than fifteen schools using it.
The presentations that I started in 2019 titled ‘The importance of knowing and mastering the sounds of English’ had the purpose of getting teachers’ interest in pronunciation and then on the sounds of English. These have been helping teachers understand that it is possible to integrate pronunciation into their lessons without needing to plan a single lesson to teach the sounds or pronunciation.
All things considered, I decided to publish the phonemic chart to revolutionise the teaching of pronunciation in my country and, today, I can say that there have been good results since then, and more and more people are getting interested in working on their pronunciation. And, at the present time, the Phonemic Chart has been used in several schools, higher institutes and universities.
