My Services

These are brief descriptions of the services I offer.  All my work is customised so please get in touch if you want to know about how I work with clients.

Teacher Development

Teacher development is at the centre of many of my projects, with delivery ranging from seminars to ten-day full-time courses. The use of the word ‘development’ and not ‘training’ is deliberate. The majority of teachers I work with are highly experienced primary and secondary English language teachers working in their home countries. Typically, my role is to help them sharpen their existing classroom tools and add some extra ones to support them in the creation of the best possible learning environment. All my teacher development work revolves around the principle that the teachers I work with know their context far better than I ever will and that a set of eyes and ears from outside can be an excellent way of ensuring the students get the best possible support from these teachers.

I also work extensively on train-the-trainer programmes, with teachers who are becoming supervisors or teacher trainers or inspectors needing support with the coaching element of their job.  These programmes are often structured around a master training course that will then be cascaded across the country, especially in fragile or hostile environments.

Materials Writing and Orientation

I have ELT materials writing expertise in two areas. I work with international publishers to help them to re-version existing course books for specific markets. I have wide experience of, and interest in, ELT in the Middle East and North Africa and much of my course book adaption work is for these markets. My second area of writing expertise is the production of material for teacher development programmes. I have written workshop and seminar content for delivery in a range of teaching contexts and settings.

The need to write for very specific, sometimes challenging, settings requires a degree of creativity and ingenuity and I work hand-in-hand with the client at all stages of the writing progress, from conception to delivery. This high level of ongoing consultation helps to ensure the final set of materials meets the needs of the client as accurately as possible.

Conference Speaking

I am a regular speaker at both international and local ELT conferences. I deliver keynotes and plenaries but I also try to deliver at least one hands-on workshop with a small group of teachers at every conference whenever I can do so. I believe that teachers can benefit from conferences in two ways.  Conferences can be an immense confidence and esteem-booster for teachers, a way to know that we are all part of the same community. Equally, conferences should also serve to equip teachers with ideas that they take to class, adapt and try out immediately. This combination of morale-raising and practical idea factory is what makes conferences worthwhile.

Amongst the conferences I have spoken at are:

MATE, Morocco

KazTEA, Kazakhstan

TATE, Tunisia

KSAALT, Saudi Arabia

IATEFL, UK

British Council, Algeria

PASE, Poland.