I began teaching English when I arrived in northern Italy in 1991. Once I realized that teaching was something more to me than just a way to pay the bills, I began developing the teaching skills I needed to make a career of it: how to organize and run a class, how to engage the students, how to help them, and, more importantly, how to get out of their way so that they can develop their own relationship with English.

I also began learning more about the way the language works, borrowing the slightly dusty linguistics books I found in an alcove of the local university’s library to learn about the way sentences can, and cannot be structured; about how to notice the way Grice’s maxims play out in daily life; about why an American accent sounds different than an Australian accent. It was – and remains – good stuff. 

Language learning and teaching learning merged when I went back to school to get a Master’s degree.  What I think I appreciate most about the Master’s is that it taught me how to learn, and how to keep learning. One of the things I like best about preparing materials is that it allows me to do some research and find new ways of applying what I’ve learnt. 

I’ve taught a wide range of students in the past 20 years,  with a wide range of levels. Most of the past decade has been spent at the university level, where English is an interesting mix of academic subject and life skill.  For some students, English is simply one more exam to pass, and a few more credits to obtain. Most, though, see it as something more. They see that if they want to expand beyond Italy’s borders (and many do), an ‘academic’ knowledge of English is not enough. The people they are dealing with and competing with are productive in English, and so they need to be productive in English, too. Developing real-life productivity in an academic context has been a (sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating) challenge.