Changes Afoot

As the fiscal year draws to a close at our agency, I've decided to make a change.  I will be moving on to new teaching adventures in July.

I'm extremely grateful for the last seven years at the Center for Literacy.  For two years, I tutored a small group of three to five high-intermediate and low-advanced learners.  During that time, I was able to make a lot of mistakes in a very forgiving environment. I was also able to confirm that teaching English was truly what I wanted to pursue as my second career.  I then took an intensive (and I mean intensive!) certificate course at Lado International Institute and applied for full-class teaching.  I'm so thankful for being given the chance to learn the ropes at CFL.  I learned from my peers -- which included some seasoned pros -- and had access to internal, city, state, and national professional development opportunities.  Lead by a skilled program manager, our team of English teachers collaborated over the last few years to build a framework-style program which was designed to assure that we met our grant's requirements while allowing each teacher quite a bit of flexibility in how individual lessons were planned and taught. (A great way to merge traditional goal-driven management with the more dynamic kind of management that's needed in a classroom).  Each year, we built on that foundation and it showed in our data.  I'm so proud of our group!

But things change.  Now that I've ushered my learners to the end of our program year, I'm ready to try something new.  I just committed to volunteer-teaching conversation classes at International House Philadelphia.  The focus is on speaking and listening skills, so the principles of unplugged teaching should serve these classes well.

June 2012: heading for new places!

Stay tuned for updates on this new phase in Free-Range English Language Teaching!