Details of previous experience within the field of language training.

Johanna Stirling

 

Teaching experience 

  ·       I have been teaching EFL to adults for 16 years, mostly at Bell Norwich.  Levels of my general English classes have ranged from Beginner to Advanced.  I also taught at ILC in Paris for 8 months where I primarily taught Business English.  As a result of this experience I went on to teach many of the Business English options at Bell.  I have also taught ESP classes (to civil engineers, marine engineers, bankers, etc.), EAP and IELTS preparation classes.  I have prepared students for FCE, CAE and Proficiency examinations.  In addition I have directed and taught on many closed group and one-to-one courses.

 

Teacher Training experience

  ·       I have worked on several CTEFLA or CELTA courses each year since 1994, many of which I directed.  As well as courses at Bell Norwich, I have worked on CELTA courses in Birmingham, UK and Melbourne, Australia.

  ·       I have also directed and worked on a variety of overseas teachers’ courses, teaching methodology, language improvement, multimedia and British Life and Institutions. These have included,:

  ·       open enrolment courses: CEELT preparation, a methodology course: “Getting the Most from Your Coursebook”, and "Multimedia for Teachers".

  ·       primary teachers from Hong Kong, France, Spain, Germany

  ·       Swiss secondary school teachers

 

Management experience

  ·       I have held a six-month post as Assistant Academic Manager (2000) and several other six-month posts as Course Co-ordinator at Bell Norwich.  My duties included timetabling, testing and grouping students, observing teachers, managing resources, writing references, dealing with students’ problems, organising lecture programmes and visits and various other management tasks

  ·       I have been Course Director for a Bell off-site course (Wensum Lodge, Norwich) with many duties as above.

 

Materials writing

  ·       In 2001 I wrote two modules for an online Business English course for the Bell Distance Learning Unit.  This challenging project involved working as a team with 3 other Bell writers and learning from scratch what constituted effective materials for an online course.  I used this knowledge to produce one module on Travel and another on Telephoning. The latter module was made up into a CD for use as a demonstration for the complete course and has been widely distributed. This is going to be published by Delta Publishing in August 2004.

  ·       Other teaching materials I have produced include a set of tasks for use in the language laboratory(1999).  This was the result of a project I conducted into more communicative ways of using the language laboratory, as I felt it was an underused resource in the school.  Having solicited teachers’ needs, I produced about 20 worksheets/activities for use with different types of classes within the school.  These are now used throughout the Bell UK Schools and I have given INSETs at two of the schools on using the materials.

  ·       I have also produced various self-access materials for the Bell Study Centres, most notably a set of worksheets for remedial spelling (2002).  This was the result of a project (see below) to help students whose general progress was being held back by poor spelling and was specifically aimed at Arabic students.  The material includes a diagnostic test which guides students to the most appropriate worksheets.  Some of these are concerned with learner training, such as using a dictionary or remembering spellings, and others focus on particular problems such as silent letters or spelling long and short vowel sounds.  Cassette recordings accompany many of the worksheets.  These materials have been incorporated into all the UK Bell study centres and are well used.

  ·       I produced four listening and speaking projects based on Norwich (1994).  The aim was to use the city as a teaching resource.  Each revolves around a topic: Norwich City, Art, Industry, and Education, and takes students beyond the classroom, meeting local people and discussing issues and reactions with their classmates.   

  ·       Other self access materials I have produced for the Study Centre include

  ·       Various “How to Improve your Writing” worksheets (2002)

  ·       Cassettes on “How to Improve Your Vocabulary” and “How to Improve Your Speaking and Pronunciation” (1997)

  ·       a practice material pack for the LCCI SEFIC examination(1993).

 

Research and Presentations

  ·       I have conducted action research (with a colleague in 1997) on vocabulary learning and the use of a Vocabox, the results of which I presented at the 1998 IATEFL Conference in Manchester and TESOL Paris 1999, as well as an in-house INSET and a presentation at Bell “Summerfest” for overseas teachers.  We produced a report including many practical tips for keeping a Vocabox and a range of activities for recycling the lexis within it.  Articles based on this have been published in TESOL Paris Conference Reports (1999), Tempus 6 (2002, a Finnish teacher training journal) and serialised in the Bell Teacher Training Newsletter. The Vocaboxes are widely used within our school now.   

  ·       I also conducted research into the teaching of spelling and as a result produced self-access materials (see above), a report, an INSET session and a magazine article.  I examined some ways that spelling is taught to other types of learners, such as native speaker children, dyslexics and adult literacy students, and then considered how these methods could be adapted for teaching spelling in EFL.   

  ·       I have written two research papers (4,000 words each) for the Bell Curriculum Development Project, on the subjects of vocabulary and homework.  These involved researching current thinking on the subjects, collecting colleagues’ views and adding my own ideas to provide a framework for dealing with these areas throughout the Bell Trust.  These are published on the Bell Intranet.

  ·       At Bell Norwich I have run several in-service teacher development sessions.

 

For more information or if you would like me to run and INSET or workshop at your institution please email me