Katie Eccleston Bokor

Katie Eccleston Bokor is a Visual Arts and English Language teacher from the UK, currently working in Hangzhou, China. Katie obtained her MA in Fine Art (2015) from the School of Art, Birmingham City University, UK. Her research explores the English language benefits of teaching visual literacy and practice to younger ESL learners and how this improves general English vocabulary knowledge and speaking skills. Her own artistic practice in film further supports her interests in using visuals as tools for language learning. Katie is currently designing and delivering lessons that aim to improve ESL student’s skill through expressive and imaginative content.

Katrine Njøten

Katrine Sæthre Njøten is an English teacher living in Bergen, Norway. She has been teaching English, history and religion at an upper secondary school in Askøy outside of Bergen since finishing her studies five and a half years ago. The school offers vocational and general studies, and Njøten teaches English in both. Her education is a Master’s degree in English from the University of Bergen, one-year programmes in history and religion, as well as the required courses in pedagogy and didactics. Katrine is very interested in the use of visual aids in language learning, and is conducting her own self-development project on using creative methods of teaching and assessments to aid students in learning English as a foreign language. This project includes using commercials, short films, films, music videos, film-making, art, photography and sculptures in both vocational and general studies programmes.

Kerstin Okubo

Kerstin Okubo has been an ESL professional for more than 20 years. She began her focus on EAP in 2008, and has been teaching at the University of Toronto for the last six years. Kerstin is currently the Lead Instructor for Academic Listening and Speaking with the University of Toronto’s IFP program. She is also interested in drawing and painting, and spends her free time exploring these mediums.

Kieran Donaghy

Kieran Donaghy is a teacher, teacher trainer, international conference speaker and award-winning writer. He holds an M.Ed. in English Language Teaching and an M.A. in Business Communication. His website on the use of film in language teaching Film English http://film-english.com/ won a British Council ELTons Award for Innovation in Teacher Resources, the most prestigious European media in education prize the MEDEA Award for User-Generated Media in 2013, and an English Speaking Union Award in 2014. Kieran is the author of several books including the methodology book Film in Action (DELTA Publishing). His areas of interest include film, video, empathy, values and psychology in language learning. You can find out more about Kieran and his work at his website http://kierandonaghy.com/ .

Lena Soboleva

Lena Soboleva was born in the Czech Republic, raised in Russia, and is based in Catalonia now. She is a teacher who works in early years education. She studied linguistics in Moscow, English philology in Barcelona, and alternative education in the Netherlands. She also holds Cambridge CELTA, CELTyl, and Delta. Lena is Cambridge speaking examiner and is currently working on developing her own project in early years education.

Linda Ruas

Linda Ruas has been teaching and training teachers for many years, in Brazil, Japan and now back home in London. Recently she’s worked on short teaching and training projects in São Tomé and Príncipe and in the refugee camp in Calais. She now teaches ESOL and CELTA at Greenwich Community College, London, and, in her spare time, runs the British Council ELTons-nominated Easier English wiki New Internationalist.

Lisa Stagg

Lisa Stagg lectures in British Studies and is an Academic Skills Course Leader at the University of Bath. Previously, she ran the university’s hugely successful ELAC (English Language and Culture) programme. Lisa is a passionate advocate for the use of visual media in language and academic teaching. Her current research examines the role of inclusive teaching and English language classroom techniques in the broader academic pedagogical context.

Litza Juhasz

Born and raised in the United States, Litza Juhasz has worked as a museum educator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest since 1999. She has planned and delivered programs for school groups, developed weekend activities, written trails for children, teenagers and adults, organized summer camps for 6-18 year olds and trained pre and in-service teachers to use the collection. Litza has explored how built-in interactive elements facilitate learning and understanding as well as heighten visitors’ overall experience. Her first large-scale project, the interactive gallery space at the Vasarely Museum Budapest, won the Best Hungarian Museum Education Initiative in 2011. Passionately interested in materials development, since 2013 she has also focused on interpreting the Museum’s collection for people learning and teaching English as a foreign language. Her project DepARTures won the European Language Label for 2017 in Hungary. Litza is adapting board games, puzzles and trying out her makey makey with Scratch as new avenues for visitors to have fun, explore the Museum’s collection, and appreciate the historical period in which the objects were made.

Louise Emma Potter

Louise Emma Potter has been working in the education field for more than 25 years. She was born in England and now lives in Brazil. She graduated in Advertising and Marketing from E. S. P. M and has since then applied her knowledge in the Education area, having as area of expertise teacher training and teacher development. She worked as a coordinator for 12 years leading a team of teachers for a well-known language school and now leads her own business at Teach-in Education developing the professional growth of language teachers in mainstream and language schools through workshops, online courses and training sessions.  Presenting webinars is also a way she has found to help develop teacher’s skills. She is the co-author of Young Learners series of English books at Somos Educação writing for Sistema Anglo de Ensino and the co-author of Paddy the Jelly and Green House series from Pearson.

Magdalena Brzezinska

Magdalena Brzezinska is a graduate of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. She is an EFL teacher with over 20 years of experience, teacher trainer, international conference speaker and sworn translator. She was an assistant lecturer at the University of Warmia and Masuria, Poland. At present, she is an instructor and lecturer at the WSB University in Poznan, Poland. Magdalena is Membership Officer for the Visual Arts Circle, and she strongly believes in the value of arts in education. Her other research interests include global skills, creative methodologies of foreign language teaching, and technology-enhanced project-based learning. She is the Train the Trainers SIG Chair for GEN TEFL and a member of EFL Talks – Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Magdalena Dygala

Magdalena Dygala is a teacher trainer at the University of Technology and Humanities in Radom and also an EFL teacher at Slowacki High School. She has been involved in the PEACE project – Cross Cultural Understanding for the last 10 years, hosting many trainees from around the world in her high school. In 2014 she was one of the winners of the International Headway Scholarship and participated in a 2-week professional development course at Exeter College in Oxford. Her main interests include: boosting creativity in the language classroom through music and songs, game-like activities and making videos with her students. When she’s not busy with teaching she loves reading English books, listening to rock music and travelling. She writes guest blog posts for ETpedia created by John Hughes.

Magdalena Wasilewska

Magdalena Wasilewska is a graduate of Warsaw University in Poland – Teacher Training College and Amercian Studies Center. She is a teacher with over 20 years of experience, DOS in a private school of English “Green Hills Academy”, a graduate of Teacher Trainer Academy – DOS- ELTea, Cambridge oral examiner, conference speaker, licenced tour guide. She is a member of IATEFL and FILTA Associations.

Maja Séguin

Maja Séguin is a teacher of English as Second Language, with a focus on English in theological settings. She works at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Croatia and is currently pursuing MA in Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Manuel Brunet

Manuel Brunet is an educational psychologist living in Barcelona, Spain. He has worked as a counsellor with primary school and preschool children in Chile, and after obtaining a Master’s degree in education at University of Bristol, UK, he has specialized in instructional design for educational videogames. He founded the video game startup Tree Island Studio with which develop ELT mobile games and Digital books. He considers that audiovisual and digital tools are still poorly exploited in education, specially in developing countries, so his aim is to provide teachers with engaging teaching products.

Marc Garcia Fusté

Marc Garcia Fusté has a degree in Spanish Philology and has taught Spanish as a foreign language for 15 years. He began his career in Naples, Italy where he lived for 5 years. He taught at la Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa and Instituto Cervantes. He has recently finished a Master’s degree in teacher training and his final project was based on how video could be used to improve communicative competence. In recent years he has become interested in the use of images in the language classroom. In 2016 he created his blog ELE Videos in which he shares lesson plans designed around short videos. He currently works at UAB Idiomes, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where he has given various workshops on the use of images. In addition, he is a keen photographer whose work has been exhibited and used on the cover of a number of books.

Marcela Jalo

Marcela Jalo is an EFL teacher (UNLP). She holds a MA in TEFL (University of Jaén–Spain). She teaches English Didactics at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. She coordinates the English Department at Colegio Nacional Rafael Hernández (UNLP) and she is also a head teacher at Escuela de Lenguas (UNLP). She has several years’ experience teaching in secondary schools and university level and has a keen interest in material design to enable student teachers to take informed decisions and make choices in the use of student-generated content.

Margarita Kosior

Margarita Kosior was born in Poland and is based in Greece. She is a passionate storyteller and a tertiary educator teaching Academic English and Language Teaching Methodology at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels, but she is also interested in ELT at the pre-K level. Margarita is a frequent presenter at international conferences recently actively engaged in the area of ELT materials design. As an advocate for social justice, she believes in spreading awareness of global issues through ELT. She shares her insights and teaching tips on her blog: ELT for a Better World. As a mother of two bilingual children, Margarita is a strong supporter of bilingual and multilingual education. As a curious trend-spotter, she is always on the lookout for current approaches and methods in language teaching.

Maria Amono

Maria Amono teaches English at the University of Calabria and Spanish at high schools. She got her Master’s Degree in Specialized Translation in 2011 at the University of Bologna (Forlì). Since then she has been working in the translation field as a freelancer; in particular, she deals with technical and advertising texts. In 2010 she was awarded a traineeship at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Translation. In 2015 she specialized in foreign language teaching at the University of Calabria and her specific interest is in the humanistic approach and previously worked as a language tutor at the Unical Language Center. So far, she has had many teaching experiences to students of different ages and language backgrounds. In September 2016 she won the Italian competition for secondary school teachers.

Maria Cleary

Maria Cleary is a freelance author, editor and teacher trainer. She has written and contributed to a number of ELT course books and culture courses as well as being the author of a number of primary readers, including Skater Boy, winner of the ERF award for young learners in 2015. She is the series editor of Helbling Readers, Helbling Young Readers The Thinking Train and passionately believes in the importance of visual and multimodal storytelling.Maria loves picture books and spends a lot of her free-time making up stories .

Maria Theologidou

Maria Theologidou has been working as an EFL teacher and translator since 2004. She graduated from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2005 and also holds an MA in Audiovisual Translation from the University of Surrey. As an amateur singer and artist, she has always been interested in the use of Arts in teaching, particularly in relation to the way music and artistic expression through painting can promote and consolidate knowledge. She feels creativity and engagement are the roots of learning. These are the two forces that have inspired her presentations and workshops in TESOL conferences, online webinars as well as her blog posts and journal articles.

Marijana Maksimovic Matic

Marijana Maksimovic Matic is a PhD in EFL and works at the Faculty of Philology and Arts, the Department for Visual Arts, University of Kragujevac and at her private language center for foreign languages for both children and adults called Patuljak. Her career is 20 years long. She is a teacher, teacher trainer, course designer and a successful enterpreneur. She enjoys working with all kinds of learners through communicating and exploring visual arts, music, history, geography, different cultures and thus creating independent users of a foreign language. She loves to travel and meet new people, try out differnt foods, visit cultural sights and leads a healthy, active, lifestyle. She has a teenage son.

Marina Yesipenko

Marina Yesipenko is a PhD student currently doing her research in Semiotics, Philosophy of Communication and Multimodality at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Holding MA in TESOL and Applied linguistics, Delta, IHCYLT and Celta, she has been a teacher, teacher trainer for 15 years, as well as a speaker at international ESL Conferences. Mostly keen on exam preparation strategies, she preaches the basics of Lexical Approach and the conventions of Multimodality, being a proponent of learner autonomy and Multiple Intelligences theory. At the same time she is convinced that teaching practices should be grounded on science and solid research findings. Her motto is: “Teaching is not only a profession but a vibrant and overwhelming lifestyle”.

Marius Palmer-Brown

Marius Palmer-Brown is an Englishman from Kent. He has enjoyed Art since he was a teenager. He has worked for the British Council as a teacher since 1992. What he most likes about his job are the opportunities for creativity in the classroom and being able to work with some very interesting individuals (both learners and teachers!). When he’s not working he loves listening to all kinds of music and getting engrossed in a good book. He writes the odd poem and also greatly enjoys a good movie (especially Indie ones and the Classics). He’s married, has a nine-year old son called Adrian, and two cats called Benny and Flea.

Mark McKinnon

Mark McKinnon is a teacher at UAB Idiomes Barcelona, a trainer and materials writer. He has authored an EAP skills coursebook called Skillful for Macmillan, and written other materials for teachers and students for various Macmillan courses. He writes an educational blog to help teachers integrate pronunciation into every lesson called https://teachpronunciation.blog/ He is also a tutor on OxfordTEFL’s Trinity Dip TESOL. He has a special interest in senior learners and co-wrote two articles on the subject for the journal English Teaching Professional.

Mary Kavanagh

Mary Kavanagh has been an English language teacher since 2010 and has experience teaching in Guadeloupe and in Ireland. Through her studies and her experience, she has found that visual arts play an important role in the classroom. She incorporates visual arts in every class, whether it be to introduce a topic to spark interest, to aid learning or to consolidate learning at the end of the class. She studies the French language also and recognises the significance of visual arts in language learning, as she has personally benefitted from it. She has a website – www.juiceboxenglish.com, a language learning resource for English language learners, with a focus on Ireland.

Matt Lunt

Matt Lunt is a Director of Studies and teacher. He has been working at Liverpool School of English since 2009, a busy city centre language school offering year-round adult courses and junior summer courses. Matt holds the Cambridge DELTA and also the English UK DELTM (Diploma in ELT Management). As well as teaching English, he is interested in personal and professional development, with a particular focus on wellbeing and stress management. He is currently studying part-time for a Masters programme in Mindfulness-based Approaches at the University of Bangor. Matt loves to use visuals and video in teaching and teacher training sessions, and is particularly interested in using visuals within task-based language teaching and DOGME.

Matteo Broggini

Matteo Broggini is an Italian teacher, teacher trainer and course designer based in Milan. He works at Centro di lingua e cultura italiana per stranieri and Fashion Institute of Technology New York@Politecnico di Milano. He is a member of FILTA and FLAME (Manchester Metropolitan University). His research focuses on: – how to turn full-length movies into complete language courses (Lezioni di video and, previously, Come didattizzare un intero film); – using short videos in the language classroom (In video brevitas); – working on the cinematic representation of cities (monuments, urban spaces…) through students’ film literacy (Le città visibili). In 2015 he created his blog Corti Didattici (https://corti-didattici.weebly.com/), where he shares lesson plans for Italian teachers, designed around short videos. More information about Matteo’s work is available on https://matteobroggini.wixsite.com/home

Meghan Killeen

Meghan Killeen is a New York City-based instructor with 10 years of experience teaching ESL both privately and for language programs. She is TESOL certified and completing her M.A. in TESOL from The New School. She is currently the Head Instructor at the ESL School at the New York Film Academy where she has designed and implemented curricula for both a Filmmaking and Visual Narrative elective. She recently presented at the 2017 Adult Basic Education Consortium on the topic of project-based learning projects for the arts and also was invited to speak at the 2015 Spring Mini NY TESOL Conference on how to integrate media in the classroom to enhance language skills. She has also taught as a private instructor at a private English immersion school in Japan.  In addition to her teaching experience, she has a background in Graphic Design and Marketing and has contributed to Time Out Tokyo and design magazine, Cool Hunting.

Michael Free

Michael Free is an ESL/EFL teacher who has spent the last 10 years teaching in South Korea. He holds MA’s in TESL/TEFL and Music Criticism. In addition to content-based teaching, he is keenly interested in the use of visual art in conjunction with thinking routines.

Miguel Farias

Miguel Farias is an English language teaching educator who works at Departamento de Linguistica y Literatura, Universidad de Santiago de Chile. He holds an MA in Linguistics from Ohio University and a Ph. D. from the Catholic University of America.  His research interest in multimodality led him to explore the relations between reading comprehension and visual literacy. Another line of inquiry is the study of homophobic discourse in the socio semiotic landscape of Santiago, Chile, and Bogotá, Colombia. One of his latest research interests is the study of visual and verbal representations (multimodal metaphors) of language learning and teacher identity as pedagogical resources in English language education programs. His papers on these topics are published in journals and books in Latin America and Europe.

Naomi Epstein

Naomi Epstein has specialized in teaching EFL to Deaf & hard of hearing pupils in Israel for the past 30 years I. She began her career as an elementary school teacher but then switched to high-school. She has also taught struggling adult learners striving to be accepted to college. She has a B.A. in Deaf Education, a B.E.D. in EFL and an M.A. in Curriculum Development. She is the author of two textbooks and work both a teacher and a teacher’s counselor. She blogs at: Visualising Ideas and her twitter handle is: @naomishema. She lives in Kiryat-Ono, Israel, with her husband and two sons.

Nicholas Bruckman

Nicholas Bruckman is a New York based filmmaker who has created video content for many ELT projects. He also founded People’s Television in 2010, combining his passion for independent filmmaking and telling stories for brands. He has produced commercials and web content for some of the world’s leading companies, agencies, and non-profits. Nicholas produced the feature film Valley of Saints, which won the Audience Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. He previously directed and produced the feature documentary La Americana, which won best documentary at the New York and Los Angeles Latino Film Festivals, broadcast worldwide on networks including National Geographic and Al Jazeera.

Nick White

Nick White is a Teaching Fellow in ESOL in the School of Language and Area Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK, where he teaches language and communication for academic and professional purposes to undergraduate students on business, humanities and social science programmes. He has an MA in Literary Linguistics in which he studied postcolonial literature written in English (primarily from Nigerian authors Amos Tutuola, Chinhua Achebe, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ben Okri). Originally trained in Art and Design at Leeds College of Art and Goldsmith’s College, University of London, he has a good knowledge of the theory and practice of visual arts and has applied this extensively in his language teaching. His three main current interests are in the History of Language Learning and Teaching (HoLLT), understanding language within a semiological framework, and coherence.

Nina Newman

Nina Newman is a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. She works at the Academic Department of Kinneret College in Israel on the Sea Of Galilee. She holds an MA in TESOL. Nina is a creative writer and is now in the process of learning to draw. She loves the movies, walking in nature, cooking, reading and traveling.