Thursday, September 26, 2019

Finding Your Zen: Managing the Stress of the Classroom


Stress and burnout are pandemic in education. How can you find peace in the midst of the demands we all face? 

Click here to listen to the interview with Shelly Terrell

There is no failure, only feedback - iTDi blog


If we lived according to the dictionary, feedback would be “helpful information or criticism that is given to someone to say what can be done to improve a performance…” In reality, what we do is grade our students’ tests and exercises and point out what was wrong, mark their essays, and write correct answers. That’s what we often call and consider to be feedback. It looks like we use this F-word in a wrong and utterly inappropriate way…
Click here to see the post

What is failure anyway? - ITDi blog


A definition from Cambridge dictionary says:
Failure (noun) – the ​fact of someone or something not ​succeeding.
The meeting was a complete/total failure. 
I’m a bit of a failure at making (= I cannot makecakes.
feel such a failure (= so unsuccessful).


I need movement - Interview with Josette LeBlanc


Talking about self-care and self-compassion
Click here to read the interview

What's the best way to give feedback? -


Monday, September 23, 2019

Intercultural Collaborative learning in the Virtual space - WizIQ blog


Cultural literacy seems to be the new currency in today’s globalized world. However, the only way to develop it is – to offer intercultural collaborative learning experiences to students in the virtual space. Internet technology provides educators with new ways to deliver cultural training while enabling learners to meet and collaborate from remote locations.

Click here to read!

Keep on Moving - Interview with Sylvia Guinan




Nick Maragkos and myself talk with Sylivia about kinaesthetic learning 

How to be an annoying teacher - WizIQ Blog

Have you ever tried to be an annoying teacher?
Here’s how!!

Have you ever wanted to see yourself through the eyes of your students?
When you read this list you may think that surely these things don’t REALLY  happen in the classroom, especially not YOUR classroom.
But then, why did Theodora find these complaints on student forum threads?


Click here to read more!

Differentiated learning - EFL talks


We take exams seriously - ToBELTA web conference




Ideas on how to make exam teaching more fun!

English, Cooking and other stuff… - Interview with my son - iTDi blog


I recently interviewed my teenage son to find out what he thought about me being a teacher. I was really curious what his answers would be. At first he was really hesitant. Being a teenager, he doesnt like being seen with his mum a lot. And he does not want to be exposed to the public.especially in a teachers site. If it were a site about breakdance prodigies, he would gladly do it, I am sure.   Like most teenagers, he is afraid that his friends will characterize him as strange if he does something outside of their ordinary world. If I were a public school teacher he would never have agreed to this interview! Cool kids are NEVER to be seen with teachers. But after a lot of pleases, he finally gave in. I used the interview questions provided by iTDi and here i what was said:
Click here to read more!

Keynote: Be Someone's Hero



Most of you would agree that being a teacher, does not only have to do with presenting a subject, but also be a role model and make students aware of situations and other people's feelings. Could we raise students' awareness? This is a presentation of a #30Goal that started as a blogpost and turned out to be a wonderful event. 
Click here to see the video

A student's voice - iTDI blog


A few months ago, when and I saw that there was going to be a “Student Voices Issue” for the iTDi blog, I knew just whom I wanted to help me contribute to the issue.
I have known Helen since kindergarten. Now she is almost 15. We have grown together, year by year, influencing each other. Helen is a huge Harry Potter fan and she has read every Potter book there is, some in Greek and some in English. The impressive thing was that although her level back when she started them in English was not so high, she insisted on reading the book with a dictionary next to her.
Click here for the rest!

Keep on Moving Workshop


"Keep on moving" seemed as a challenging workshop right from the start: the only presentation of the Convention to be held outside, with a lurking  fear of low temperatures and rain and people perhaps feeling apprehensive as to what they should expect.

Click here to find out more!

Getting unstuck - Guest blogging for Teaching Village


We have all been there! Sometimes you’re swamped with work, with personal problems and you just can’t function. As a teacher, as a person, you just go through a very non-creative phase and you actually don’t know what to do. That’s how I have been feeling lately and in an attempt to get “unstuck” I have asked Chuck and Barbara to suggest a subject for me to write on and maybe I could get over what I am feeling right now. So Barbara said: “Why don’t you write something about this? How to get unstuck!” I found this a wonderful idea and started doing a bit of research on the Internet. There is plenty of material with lots of advice. The thing is…does it actually help you to move on? So here is me experimenting…

Click here to read the rest!

The body learns - My first post for iTDi


“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”  – Confucius
When you read a title like this, you might wonder: can the body actually learn a foreign language?   You know that when we learn something, we use our brains, but what about our body? Is it possible?

THE STORY OF MY LIFE!!! - Guest blogging for Ken Wilson's blog


It was a real surprise when I was asked to write as a guest author on Ken’s blog. I mean I have never considered myself as a “serious” blogger. I only write when I have something interesting to say or when I am in the mood to do so. What I have noticed though is that it is different when you are asked to write, because I don’t want to disappoint anyone, including myself.
This post will be a kind of autobiography I guess… I’d like to thank Ken for giving me the opportunity to do it.

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Teaching online through Lockdown

Some months ago, when I wrote a blog on online Teaching for iTDi , I could never imagine that the teaching world would turn digital overn...