Featured Teacher - Rachael Roberts

My first degree was in English and Drama, and when I graduated I decided to spend a year abroad teaching English before I returned to the UK to do an MA in Theatre Directing. I never did that MA, though I did later do one in ELT, because I had accidently discovered my real vocation.

Twenty-five years later, and I’m still teaching, training and, nowadays, writing ELT materials. I’ve been back in the UK since 1998, but have very fond memories of my years abroad, teaching in Portugal, Brazil and Poland.

Memorable Experiences in Poland

There were so many memorable experiences, but one that just popped into my head happened when I was teaching in Poland. One day, I was on my coffee break when the Director sent a message to ask me to come and see her in her office. Slightly worried, I knocked on the door and entered…only to see some bright lights and a camera crew. A Polish television station was there to interview me about a new teacher-training course for teaching Young Learners. The Director thought I’d be less nervous if I didn’t know about it in advance! My Polish was pretty hopeless, so I feel sorry for anyone who was watching that particular news item, as it probably made very little sense at all.

Learning Polish (and Portuguese) really helped me to empathize with my students, and, in fact, I used to start every Beginners English class in Poland with a little story about my latest silly mistakes in Polish (there were plenty).

ELT Resourceful

I still try to get into the classroom on a regular basis, but my main area of work now is materials writing. This can be a little lonely, so I started my blog, ELT-Resourceful, about three years ago now, as a way of communicating with teachers around the world. There is quite a large collection now of articles about different aspects of methodology, and teaching ideas, which is a kind of virtual teacher training for me. And there is also a growing bank of free to use materials, mostly based around videos.

Teachers often do contact me through the blog (or via twitter or Facebook) and it’s great to keep in touch with what’s happening in classrooms around the world.

Check out ELT-Resourceful.com

Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter