Hi everyone and greetings from France.

My name is Jo Bertrand and I am one of the moderators for the IATEFL Young Learnes forum. I'm looking forward to presenting at the Young Learners SIG pre-conference day and hope to meet some of you there. I work for the British Council in Paris and I am the educational advisor for English language assistants working in primary schools around the world via the BC Language Assistant website. I've also recently set up an association with my co-presenter, Nicky Francis, to promote the use of authentic storybooks in the EFL primary classroom. www.thestoryseeds.com 

I'm really looking forward to getting to know you andto begin with finding out about the different teaching contexts you work in.

All the best

Jo

Hello everybody

I'm Helen Davies and  really pleased to be one of the moderators for the IATEFL Young Learners forum !  I am a member of the Young learners sig and the "Webheads" online community. I live in France and have been working in state sector schools with teens for the past 20 years. Bringing IT into the classroom is a special interest of mine and I'm learning all the time in this field. At the moment I'm involved in a Comenius project for Special Needs pupils in my school, the UK and Germany and planning to start an MA in language learning and educational technology in September.

I'm looking forward to this opportunity to meet colleagues from all walks of life and exchange ideas and concerns together.

Bye for now 

Helen 

 PS I'm new to twitter but you can find me here :  "helen100463"

Hello Everybody,

my name is Anna Lewandowska, I'm from Warsaw, Poland. I've been an EFL teacher for over ten years and have taught almost all ages and levels of students. I'm currently teaching 14-15-year-old teenagers at a local state school. The job is quite challenging but rewarding and that's what I enjoy most about it: it's never been easy the teens, I think lots of colleagues will agree with me here. Only recently I got really excited about e-learning and moving online at least some of the traditional classroom activity. IT offers so many possibilities for it which I believe can enhance the quality of learning drastically. Yet most of the students are still quite unaware of it, like mine: so many of them reluctant to get involved into blogging or corresponding via e-mail despite the fact that the majority have a good access to the Internet and use it regularly to entertain themselves.

I'm really pleased to be one of the moderators for the Young Learners forum. I'm not going to attend the conference in person but will be actively particitpating online. I'm very much looking forward to meeting new colleagues from all over the world and sharing ideas and observations with them.

 I posted a version of this message over 8 hours ago - but in the wrong thread, it seems.

Jo, Helen, Anna,

We must combine forces, mustn't we. to get a discussion going. As I understand it, this thread is JUST for introductions, although I am now using it for administrative, coordinating purposes.

(Graham , I'm sure, does not mean to be here, on the young Learners' space.

What is not clear is how we pick up readers, but I guess potential contributors are being gather by IATEFL advertsing somewhere.

I'llread "Starting a new thread" and get back to you.

If any of you know something I don't - just led me know.

Cheers,

Dennis

Sorry..... You will learn that my typing leaves a lot of room for creative reading.  :-)

Hello everybody! Greetings from China! 

I'm Iskra Angelova and  really pleased to be one of the moderators for the IATEFL Young Learners forum ! 

I would like to tell you more about myself, but I could do that tomorrow, please. I am sorry, but I have caught a terrible flu and my head is bursting. I just wanted to say "Hi" now.

until tomorrow, Iskra

Iskra, welcome and get better.

Thank you, Dennis, and hello again, everyone,

First of all, allow me to tell you how happy I am to be a part of this team. This is my first time as a moderator and I am a little apprehensive:):):)

My name is Iskra Angelova and I am Bulgarian. I have been an EFL teacher for 20 years. In the last 5 years I have been teaching at Guangdong Ocean University and at the Zhanjiang Chinese-English School in Guangdong province, China, grades 1 to 9.

At home, in Bulgaria, I have taught at New Bulgarian University as well as several K-12 schools.

I have worked on and managed several International School Projects (i.e. ELTECs, Comenius, FACT WORLD), involving countries such as Hungary, Portugal Romaniq, Croatia, Greece and China.

I am a member of BETA Bulgaria or at least I still consider myself one)::)): I have given presentations and worshops at regional IATEFL conferences both in Europe and in China on practical approaches to teaching pronunciation, grammar and sentence structure and application of the video camera in the language classroom. I am very interested in Drama and the possibilities it offers for making the process of learning memorable and fun.

Teaching in China has been a great challenge and an unbelievable experience for me.

I am very much  looking forward to meeting new colleagues from all over the world and sharing ideas and experiences with them.

best, Iskra

Iskra,

Fascinating, Iskra. You bring a wealth of experience to this forum.

Hi Iskra and all

It's great to get to know you all. I hope you're having a great time in China. I used to live just outside of Shenzhen and worked for the British Council in Guangzhou. I also taught young learners in a French school where I lived.

Iskra excuse my ignorance but what is BETA Bulgaria?

Right, speak later.

Jo

Hi Iskra

great to know that your flu is better !

You have so much to share with us and I'm really looking forward to hearing more.

bye for now

Helen

Really glad to meet you Iskra and hello to Everybody else again, as we have already exchanged a couple of emails with each other. I'm very much looking forward to working with you all.

Anna

Since I'm here, let me just say: Have a happy weekend all of you. We are introducing German friends to scones, but have to pass up on the clotted cream. I've no idea how it is made!

A great reference, Helen - thanks!

"What did you do on Cardiff Online?"  

"We swapped recipes."

Hello everyone!

My name is Ana, i'm writing from Argentina, South America and the first thing I'd love to say s THANK YOU all moderators, you've already given me a great time while reading your introductions! how fun this is going to bE! (Argentine "asado" tips coming soon!)

I 've been teaching English for about 8 years now and , same as Anna from Poland, I have taught all levels and ages . I'm also teaching 14-15 year olds now, at a private school .

Anna, we seem to share much more than our same names already and being that not all, MY students are also reluctant to get involved into corresponding via e.mail, having all of them good access to the internet. I thought that might respond to the little time we have shared since classes have just started down here. Do you think the reason might be a communicational one? Do you think having e-mail contact with your students might appear to them somewhat rare since you're a teacher and not a peer pal? Should we teachers try to establish first some kind of good very positive communication with them before they are ready to share " virtual contact" ?

I looking forward to hearing more form you.

Bye for now,

Ana.

Welcome, Ana. It's an awfully long time since I taught 14/15 year olds, so I'll let someone else comment on your initial remarks.

Welcome Ana !

It's great to see that we are sharing our teaching experiences across the globe ! 

I teach 14-15 year olds too,  in the state sector.

In different countries "private" and "state" sector seems to  mean so many different things - and these differences seem to influence how projects and innovation are "received" by pupils and parents.

I believe  in Argentina you are at the beginning of your school year (?) 

Do you want your pupils to communicate with you as a teacher?  or are you trying to start communication with other English speaking  pupils ?

I'd really like to learn more about your working context and why you feel  that IT and email contact is not "working" at the moment - I'm sure that we can share experiences and make progress together !

looking forward to hearing from you 

Helen 

Hello, and greetings from Japan.

I first came to Japan in 1985 with an MATESOL so new the ink was still wet. I figured to teach here for a couple of years and return to the States. I've been here off and on, ever since.

Like most EFL gypsies, I've taught all levels of students in more environments than I'd ever dreamed possible.

In 1989 I was asked to be part of a children's ELT project with Oxford University Press. Let's Go is now in its third edition. If you're curious about the books, you can find out more here (Barbara Hoskins is my maiden name):

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/letsgo/?cc=global

These days I do more teacher training than teaching, going where I'm invited or where the publisher wants to send me--generally countries where teachers are using my books (mostly Asia and Latin America). What I've learned along the way is that while most teachers of young learners share a common goal--helping children to become good language learners and good people--there are many excellent paths to reach that goal.

As far as affiliations go, I'm a member of TESOL and JALT (Japan's IATELF affiliate), and a newly minted member of the Webheads (http://webheadsinaction.org/), a wonderful global group I met through a TESOL EVO workshop.

I will certainly be cross-posting information about this forum on the JALT Teaching Children SIG list, so you may see a few additional teachers from Japan popping in.

Looking forward to learning with, and from you all!

Barb

Greetings, Barb. Our discussions are just beginning but already the amount of experience represented on this kernel list is awesome.

Really glad to meet you Ana and Barb, it's great to meet teachers from such different parts of the world! Sorry for my late reply, I was away at the weekend.

Ana, I think I know why my students are a bit IT reluctant in terms of learning English. They don't understand yet how useful it can be. In my context, using Internet in the classroom isn't very common so my students are really new to the idea of blogging or web search during lessons. But this is changing. After a few lessons spent in the computer room they are now asking for more!

I haven't asked them to write emails yet. Yes, teenagers can be quite reluctant, as it means supplying written homework, something lots of them hate doing. And I now remembered a conversation between the two of them I eavesdropped once: they both agreed they opened their email boxes about once a month. And I think it's true: they don't have the need nor the habit of checking the mail more often, unlike adults. And as long as they see you - their teacher regularly twice a week, the reason for maintaining correspondence may not be clear to some of them. In their state schools they probably submit their homework in a traditional way.  As Helen suggested, encouraging them to start email correspondence with other students learning English could be a good idea. What do you think?

Helen, what differences have you noticed between private and state sector, especially when it comes to online projects? (I'm in a state school now but used to teach in private ones before) I've made my own observations but would like to hear yours, from France.I just thought that perhaps it's a good idea to make another thread for this issue. I'll start it then.

Hi, My name is Sanja Božinović and I come from Zagreb, Croatia.

I've been an EFL teacher for 18 years. At the moment I work in a state school teaching students aged 14 - 18, but I've taught younger students, too, as well as young adults.

I'm a member of HUPE, Croatian Association of Teachers of English affiliated to IATEFL and TESOL, and I've recently become a member of the Webheads online community, because one of my interests as a teacher is the use of new technologies in teaching.

This is my first IATEFL conference and I'm looking forward to learning and sharing ideas about teaching.

Hi Mr.Dennis again. Hi everybody,

Let me introduce myself. My name is Senad Jusufi and I come from Kosovo. I have  been working at elementary school, teaching english to young learners age 9-15 years old. i also work for a private language school"Finch" (www.finchcentre.com) teaching english to adults and other different ages.

I graduated English at university of Prishtina in Kosovo. Last year I got a scholirship from DAAD(sure known for Mr.Denis) and attended an intensive German course at Goethe Institut in Berlin so it was a good opportunity to experience how German teachers teach the second language.

I wish you all nice time during the following couple of weeks, especially to moderators of the forum,

enjoy yourselves,

senad jusufi, Kosovo

Dear all,

  This is Ida Delhysa, from South East Europe Kosova- Prizren! I have graduated last year at Univeristy of Prishtina- Faculty of Education in Prizren at the department of "English Language and Literature". I used to teach English as a practicant for four years in elementary schools in Prizren.The age of students were from: 11-16 years old. It was a very good experience and I liked it. Currently I work in Caritas Kosova- regional office in Prizren as a project manager of a center called "Early Education" for children with disabilities(0-6 years old), besides managing the center I work also direclty with a kids as a special teacher.

Best regards, 

Ida

Hi Ida

nice to see you here on the forum. We have people from all over the globe now and I'm sure we have a lot to share.

11 -16  is the age group I teach -very rewarding but teenagers can be difficult to motivate sometimes :) 

Would you say this was true of the teenagers you taught  in your context ?  What was their general attitude to learning English ? 

looking forward to hearing from you 

Hi Iskra and Helen,

I'm glad you're interested in the situation in Croatia. We are in the middle of big changes in order to modernize and standardize our education system, so there is no time to be bored.

The good thing is that all pupils start learning EFL when they are 6-7 years old and they have to take at least two lessons a week till they are 18. So all my students are at intermediate or upper-intermediate level and English is usually the subject they like at school.

The official exam is called Matura, students take it at the age of 18 and the idea is to keep all children at school till that age.

I strongly believe that teachers have to change their methods and use new technologies in teaching. That's why I have joined the Webheads. Now I'm learning how to create materials for my students. So far I've created only a blog and a few activities and encouraged students to take part in another webhead's project. but I already feel the change in the attitude of my students towards the subject - they are learning outside the classroom as much as at school and they like that part.

Hi Helen,

As I wrote before I studied English but at the same time we used to have German as an optional subject at the faculty and I also attended some German course so my german is quite well. I also teach German but very few classes per week about 5 of them since the students in the school where I work chose to learn german as optional subject.

Differences between German and English teachers? mmm not too much generaly the same way as we teach english but the thing that I noticed in Berlin was that they pay too much attention to Grammar but this is surely because German Grammar is very difficult.

Thank you and I wish you the best.

Pc: Special greeting to my friend Ida and Sanja as well since we are neighbours and we have quite similar system of education.

Bye

Hello Senad and Ida,

Welcome to the forum. I am also a neigbour. I am from Bulgaria. Our educational systems are very similar. We also have Matura at he end of 12-th grade. The students in our schools study one foreign language from grade 1 and add a second one in grade 5. They can choose from any of the European Union languages and Russian. In Sofia, the capital of our country, we also have a Jewish and an Armenian school where children can study Hebrew and Armenian and we have a high school which specializes in Chinese an Japanese. Throughout the country we have many regions where the population is mixed - muslims of Turkish origin, muslims of Bulgarian origin, gypsies and ethnic Bulgarians. In those regions the schools offer Turkish as an academic subject as well.

Hope to hear more about your students. How many languages do they have to study in school? Can they choose?

best, Iskra

Hi Iskra,

Thank you for your writing and I am glad to meet you.

The students in Kosova start learning english in the 3rd grade and they continue it till the university education so it is considered as an obligated subject. On the other hand there is possibility in the curricula of the school that students can choose another European language. However not all the school try to teach another foreign language but some of them decide to do it and in most cases they try to teach german as another language. This is because there are a lot of immigrants from Kosova who live either in Germany, Switzerland or Austria.

Another interesting thing is especially about Prizren (the town where I live). There are some minorities such as bosnians and turkish so they have possibilities to do education in their own language but at the same time they have to learn Albanian and English as well.

Best,

Senad

Dear all  

My name is Gerardo Valazza and I work at Instituto Cultural Anglo Uruguayo (Anglo). I am really thankful for the opportunity that IATEFL gives us through this means. It is certainly doing a fantastic job “linking, developing and supporting ELT professionals worldwide.” Thank you very much indeed!  

Anglo is a non-for-profit private language institute which this year is celebrating its 75^th anniversary. With about 50 branches distributed throughout the country, Anglo is probably the largest language teaching organization in Uruguay. In addition, the Anglo introduced Cambridge ESOL exams to our country 61 years ago and is presently Cambridge ESOL Supervising Centre in Uruguay.  

As for myself, I’m presently the Head of the Academic Department, Cambridge ESOL Exams Manager in Uruguay and LABCI Country coordinator.  

I’m afraid I have never had the chance to attend an IATEFL conference before, so this opportunity of taking part virtually, at a distance, is really fantastic. Thank you very much! 

Best wishes 

Gerardo

Hi everyone

Senad - your comment about ethnic minorities was very interesting.

Do Bosnians and Turks have different schools or classes to learn in their own language ? They have to learn Albanian , English and possibly German  -that's a lot of languages and a lot of teachers ! 

I make this comment, because in France we are in a period of spending/job cuts and the less "popular" languages are becoming very difficult to find in schools.

Do you think ethnic minorities should have teaching in their own language,  or go with the mainstream education system ? 

Please forgive me if I have misunderstood you :)

Hi Helen,

The reality is that minority groups share the same schools with tha Albanian majority but they do attend school on their own langauge either bosnian or turkish. Moreoveer they learn Albanian about five classes per week because without Albanian is imposible to survive in Kosova since 93 percent of population are Albanians.

If you want to hear my opinion I think for their best is that minorities should attend the school in the language the absolute majority use because they will have more opportunity for their future career and of course be equal with the others.

Let me tell you about myself I belong to Bosnian minority but I have done the whole my studies in Albanian and so I am very fluent in it. so my benefits. Now I am teaching english to both Albanians and Bosnians and honestly Albanians are very suprised and very rarely can recognize that Albanian is not my tounge language.

So in my opinion the minorities should attend school in the main official language of the state because it enables a lot of advantages in future.

I hope that I was clear and you can understand the situation in Kosova.

Hope to hear something more about France

Bye for now,

senad