Prompted by recent posts on Russian ELT-related social media by my colleagues Vera and Veronika, I want to, no, I need to give myself a gift of self-recognition and appreciation. A pat on the head, and at the same time a gentle nudge and a whisper of promise: Is there something more to these experiences? I want to look back at my teaching career through the lens of initiatives I undertook in leadership, creative solutions, community building, and overall attempts to bring about change in practice. I want to lay it all out and see what’s on the table. I want to understand how (and if) each of ..read more

It’s quite ironic that this is the message WordPress is greeting me with after a year-long separation, considering the title of my upcoming post. “Sometimes you focus too much on what is blocking you.” BAM! I do, don’t I? So what’s next? Realizing the immensity of this truth is helpful but doesn’t quite do the unblocking, I felt. Not feeding my energy to the thoughts that block me from taking action is a good first step, but I need a push, some hope and faith that I can manage whatever it is I set my mind to. Then came a reflective practice meeting and in its customary manner pursued the unbl ..read more

Last time I was in a class full of students was on January 15th of this year*. After 3 months of online teaching (and yes, I can and will call that teaching!), I will soon be back in school for my first mask-to-mask class. It feels quite surreal, to be honest. In these three months I’ve gone from “this is impossible!” to “wow, we just had such a great class!” – and that is, a four-hour class focused on intensely gaining EAP vocabulary, grammar, and *mostly writing* skills. Or a group debate session for 33 students. Or 3 hours of group presentations. What at first glance at the syllabus sounded ..read more

Below is the final part of my long and likely not super exciting article based on the project I carried out with and for my colleagues in 2019. My idea was that teachers don’t need to rely on external sources (read: managers, invited guests, conferences, etc.) for their professional development, or passively receive it “delivered” to them in a top-dwn way. Teachers can and should OWN it, and it’s better done TOGETHER, hence the word support you’d see throughout the text. Throughout the academic year 2018 I offered my colleagues to take part in (1) creating a mentoring system to support our pro ..read more

Below is part two, Discussion, of my article on self-directed teacher support systems. You can read part one, Introduction, in this post here. ***** DISCUSSION ***** At the beginning of the academic year 2018-19, I chose mentoring to be the sole focus of my professional development project and exploratory research. The idea came from my own increased interest in offering support to other teachers, learning more about mentoring, and in general “giving” as opposed to “taking” in my profession. I had planned for the project to revolve around establishing and sustaining mentoring relationships amo ..read more

It’s been 10 days since I left Japan. I said my goodbyes and lived through that pain, yet there is still a lot to reflect on and share here, things more practical and ELT-related. I’ll start by blogging the article I wrote in February this year, that is based on the project carried out in my workplace throughout academic year 2018. I have shared two of my articles on this blog before (article on my experience with dialogic journalling and this one about articulating beliefs after just a semester in the job), each time with some changes and cuts. This time I’ll probably go for a rather unedited ..read more

Leaving Japan means leaving an amazing ELT zone. I’m in awe of how much teachers here invest themselves and their time into their professional development, into professional development of others through volunteering with JALT and elsewhere. I will always be grateful for the connections and learning opportunities that Japanese ELT community provided me with!…. Well not to get too sad about leaving all this behind, I’ll get to the point. The last event I attended was the workshops on teacher identity and emotions, courtesy of TD SIG and Rikkyo. Both of these topics are right up my alley, and be ..read more