Word Hunters: Left, Right and Off-Center

Blue is an exchange student studying Japanese Konan University in Kobe. He is a student at the University of Hawaii and grew up in San Francisco. In this episode, he tells us about his background and his experiences living and studying in both Hawaii and Japan. 

In this episode, we spoke with Elaine Hodgson,  a teacher, teacher trainer, author of educational materials, and editor at Macmillan education. She has taught English for over 30 years in different public and private educational institutions in Brazil in the states of São Paulo, Ceará and the Federal District. She has also worked on training and development projects for public school teachers at the US Embassy and the British Council.  She has a keen interest in Diversity and Inclusion and was a volunteer at Raise Up! for ELT, aimed at producing more inclusive material, and EVE, aimed at helping women become conference presenters in ELT events.  Show notes and links can be found HERE.

In the episode, I interview Brent about his annual fieldwork in the Phillipines. He has been taking a group of Konan University students to the Phillipines for more than a decade now. These trips are a part of an elective at Konan and the students get a chance to interact with local students and learn about the culture of the Phillipines. Brent details the educational objectives of this field trip and talks about how it has evolved over the years, including the challenges he has faced.  Show notes can be found HERE.

Carol grew up in the UK and trained to be a French and German teacher in the UK. She has taught EFL in Greece and Mexico and is currenlty based in the US (San Francisco). She has worked on the UC Berkeley extension Certificate in TESL/EFL for about 20 years teaching Methods and Materials and Fundamentals of Linguistics for ESL/EFL teachers (since 2020 online), and worked on the New School MA online TESOL program for about 15 years until the program was discontinued.She has also been writing textbooks and materials for learners since about 1997 and has authored and co-authored several series.Her interests in the field include teacher education and knowledge, the application of research and evidence to teaching, and the brain, gender and language learning. Check out her website here: https://clethaby.com/And you can find her book,  An Introduction to Evidence-Based Teaching in the English Language Classroom: Theory and Practice, here: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Carol-Lethaby/dp/1913414892Show Notes are HERE.

Russ is an author, blogger, teacher and teacher trainer based in Japan. His book, An Introduction to Evidence-Based Teaching in the English Language Classroom: Theory and Practice, has been well received in the teacher training community and the larger ELT field-- it is a great reference for examining common teaching practices. His popular blog is also filled with interesting critical writings on popular teaching techniques.  In this episode, we talk to Russ about his background, his experience teaching, his book, his current interests, and other topics.  See our blog for links to references mentioned in the episode. 

Ken Lackman has been presenting workshops and developing materials for English language instructors since 1996. His company,  Ken Lackman and Associates, was formed in 2007 to offer teacher training sessions to schools and other language teaching organizations. Since that time, he has presented over 300 workshops at schools and conferences in Canada and Europe. In this episode he talks about his background, his experiences teaching and training, and other topics.  You can find links mentioned in the episode on our website. 

Elbert is an artist, librarian, freediver, traveler, and nature lover. In this episode, he tells us about growing up in Los Angeles, and how experiencing racism made him more resilient and tolerant. He shares stories about teaching in a poor neighborhood in South Central L.A. and talks about his current passion, freediving in and around Suma, as well as other topics. He has a YouTube channel and you can visit our blog to see other references made in the episode. 

In this episode, we talk with Ikuko Sunagawa about her background and experiences learning the English language, translation work, and other interests. Links to some of the topics can be found in this blogpost. 

Leo is the founder of Learn your English (.net), as well as an ESL teacher, trainer, and entrepreneur.  Leo believes that individuals develop through reflection, experimentation, and learning from their mistakes. Leo and his business partners work to build a language community for both instructors and learners to become more autonomous and effective.In this episode, we talk to Leo about his background, his own language learning, his experiences traveling and living abroad, the lexical approach, some interesting ideas for professional development, whether the teacher's role is to just give students information,  or to enable and empower them to use information productively, and other topics. Links to background info on some of the topics can be found on our BLOG. 

Anthony is a teacher trainer, blogger and teacher, and most known for developing an ‘unplugged’ CELTA course based on Dogme teaching principles. We discuss this interesting model of teacher training as well as Anthony’s background, his views on the resistance to more ‘reactive’ styles of teaching, and other topics. Show notes (links) can be found HERE.