I have been Tagged

I’ve been tagged in the Tag-a-Blogger challenge by Marisa Constantinides, so here I go!

What are the rules? They are simple:

Introduce the person who tagged you.
Share 11 random facts about yourself.
Answer the 11 questions posed by the blogger who tagged you.
List/tag another 11 bloggers.
Put your 11 questions to the bloggers you nominated.

Let me begin by introducing Marisa Constantinides. She is the Director of studies and the owner of CELT Athens. She is responsible for all the CELTA and DELTA courses at the center but that’s not the only thing this busy lady does. She also does off-site seminars and public speaking engagements quite often at conferences worldwide. She has also written materials for Cambridge Exam set texts and Basic grammar books. She contributes articles on Language and Foreign language teaching and Education and started #ELTchat on Twitter for other EFL professionals to have a chance to discuss various topics regarding our profession every week.

You may find information on her center at the following website: www.celt.edu.gr.

I was very priviledged to have completed my CELTA under her guidance.

11 Random facts about me:

1. I am new to teaching, recently getting my Celta in December 2013.

2. I have two beautiful daughters age 10 and 12

3. I love Mexican food, my second favorite is Chinese. Anything with some spice in it.

4. I am an avid horse back rider. I used to ride three times a week.

5. I am from the Great State of Wisconsin which made the news all over Greece with it’s -55 F temperatures this year.

6. My favourite color is purple

7. I have a Bachelors of Arts in International-Relations.

8. I have a great sense of humor and like to have a smile on all the time even if I don’t feel like it.

9. I am currently unemployed but am currently looking at private schools for future jobs.

10. I usually go every summer to the States with the kids. We have horses there on the farm.

11. I love cheese. I could put it on just about everything. (Wisconsin is the Dairy State)

Here are my answers to the questions posed by Marisa:

1. My three top qualities as a teacher that I aspire to: I always want to be engaging with my personality and teaching style. I would always like to have clear objectives and knowledge of my subject matter.

2. My dream teaching situation would be to work in a private International School here in Athens. I would also love to have all the latest technology at my fingertips, interactive white boards etc. I would love to have a library onsite.

3.Three classroom activities that really go my students talking like there is no tomorrow:

1. The first thing that worked for me was having them talk about where they live and what they like about their own city, (or mine) and why. 2. Having them divided into two groups, one teenagers and the other parents. Having them discuss their problems from the point of view of the groups they are in.3. Having them discuss pictures that go along with an old Country western song. Trying to figure our the story before they listen to the song.

4. My favourite techinque for error correction is usually delayed. I like to write the mistakes I have heard and ask the class to do peer correction. Sometimes if a bad habit is there to do some repetition.

5. Grammar lessons really freaked me out in the beginning. Being a native speaker I felt way out of my league. In the end, they are really the easiest kind of lesson to teach. Personally I like using videos or songs to teach grammar. I follow the initial listening with some elicitation of the TL and then follow up with a controlled gap fill . Here you can watch a couple of minutes from the end of that lesson which my tutor videotaped.

6. My favourite teaching websites are: www.busyteacher.org , www.Eslpartyland.com, (good for video and film clips), www.Englishgrammar.org.

7. I don’t usually play online games but if I do I love UNO.

8. I am a Twitter user now. I’m not very good at it yet but I’m working on it. I try and follow #ELTchat and find the topics are really good for a teacher like me just starting out. I’m starting to build my PLN and have followers now 🙂

9. My greatest ambitions in my TEFL career is to never stop learning and developing myself to be the best I can be.

10. If I were to present a paper at a conference I would probably talk about the benefits of being a reflective teacher. To keep a teaching journal as I find that this would really show a teacher how far they have come in their career and how to better themselves by looking at past teaching experiences. Self -improvement would be the key message here.

11. I just created my own blog and as I get more familiar and have more experiences I thnk you will all be hearing a lot more from me. Currently it’s link is: http://www.michelleos69.wordpress.com

These are the people I am going to tag for the next blog post:

Chara Michalatou, Vicky Loras, Theo Navarro, Chara Machairianaki, Sofia Petropoulou, Periklis Chatzikyriakidis, Alexandra Koukoumialou & Kostas Kemparis.

My 11 questions are:

What advice could you give to a new teacher?
What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses in the classroom?
How do you manage mixed ability classes?
What was your most memorable lessson and why?
Why did you choose ESL as a career?
How often do you attend workshops,seminars,or conferences?
How many years have you been teaching and where?
Do you find the use of technology in the classroom helpful or hazardous?
Do you tend to be a more traditional teacher or the kind that thinks out of the box more?
What books have you read that you could recommendt to other teachers to promote their own professional development?
What have been some of your favorite course books for teaching?