Background:
- Lizzie 🙂
With 9 years of post-initial qualification teaching experience (in Indonesia, Sicily and the UK), I am currently juggling the hats of English Tutor, Assistant Director of Studies and Teacher Development Coordinator at the University of Sheffield’s ELTC.
I work with foundation year students and their teachers, and am currently trying to complete my Senior Fellowship application (SFHEA). With regards to TD coordination, I regularly produce a “TD Bulletin” to raise teachers’ awareness of different ways to develop as well as developing other initiatives. My current interest is integrating teacher wellbeing and support into CPD and finding more and better ways to support my teachers.
Previous training:
- September 2012 – September 2013: DELTA, (all three modules) at Leeds Metropolitan University, gaining a triple distinction; M.A. in English Language Teaching (within which the the Delta was integrated), also with distinction.
- IH Young Learner
- IH Tutor Training certificate training courses, in Palermo
- Cambridge speaking examiner training for KET, PET and FCE exams
- Cambridge YL Suite of Starters, Movers and Flyers
- Summer 2014 – a week-long induction prior to starting work on the 10-week pre-sessional programme at the ELTC, in which the majority of the sessions were dedicated to training us in teaching English for Academic purposes and in using relevant tools such as their VLE (virtual learning environment) which is a branded version of Blackboard, Google Drive and Turnitin.
Writing
- Peer-reviewed journal article – Looking outwards: using learning materials to help learners harness out-of-class learning opportunities in Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching DOI: 10.1080/17501229.2015.1090997
- Edited book chapter: Harnessing technology to foster learner autonomy via reflection in Teaching Reflectively with Technology
- For the IH Journal – Special interest column – 30 things to enhance your teaching? the first of which appeared in the Autumn 2013 edition.
- Article for the first IATEFL Materials Writing SIG newsletter
- Book reviews for the ETAS (English Teachers Association in Switzerland) journal and for English Teaching Professional magazine.
Materials development, research and presentations
In addition to teaching and writing, I am interested in creating learning materials, doing research projects and presenting at conferences.
- An exciting achievement was when I won a British Council ELTon (The Macmillan New Talent in Writing Award) for a set of materials that I made for my dissertation project at Leeds Met. I have since worked with an editor from Macmillan to prepare these materials for publication on their Onestopenglish website
- A1 level reading worksheets for Richmond ELT,
- More recently, I have contributed and continue to contribute to in-house EAP materials at my current place of work.
- Presented a number of times at conferences such as MATSDA and IATEFL, based on research done in my own classroom
- Delivered a number of webinars for British Council TeachingEnglish, International House, BELTA and IATEFL TD SIG
- Revisited my old stomping ground (Leeds Met) to deliver some guest sessions on the M.A. ELT Multimedia module.
Blogging
I’m blogging because I’ve loved reading other teachers’ blogs about their ideas and experiences and want to send my own little boat off into that big sea of shared knowledge. My blog contains information about my materials development, research project and presentations as well as reflective writing, a range of classroom activities and a wealth of links related to the Cambridge Delta and the Leeds Met M.A. ELT.
I have also recently joined forces with Sandy Millin, over at Independent English , a blog aimed at learners of English, full of ideas for independent language learning. Hopefully this collaboration will lead to a proliferation of new ideas! 🙂
Finally, you can find me on Twitter too: @LizziePinard
If you have any training, writing, materials development, research, workshop or presentation – related projects you’d like me to be involved with, please do not hesitate to get in touch: lizzie.pinard@gmail.com
*All views are just my own…
Lizzie Pinard 
Great…
What a great journey you’ve had thus far! I start my English as a Second Language instruction masters courses in Manhattan in a month. Best of luck to you. ~Grace
Thank you 🙂 Good luck to you too – enjoy the course! Lizzie.
Hi Lizzie!
This is Heidi Bay from www-really-learn-english.com. On behalf of the Really Learn English website on English teaching and learning, it is an honor to inform you that your blog Reflections of an English Language Teacher was selected as a nominee for the Best English Blog Awards of 2013 Competition.
We have reviewed more than 100 blogs from all over the world. The quality of the shortlisted blogs was extremely impressive, and after evaluating each of the qualifying blogs on the criteria of effectiveness, writing style, English teaching relevance and quality of information provided, the team of Really Learn English came to the consensus that your blog should advance into the next round as a nominee. CONGRATULATIONS!
Your accomplishments as a blogger are appreciated and are important to the continued growth of the English Teaching community. We are excited about your continued research and work on English teaching, wonderful articles and presentations for all the English teachers and learners out there and all the hard work you have put into every article you have created. All the different topics make your blog a teaching and learning haven. It helps set new benchmarks for excellence and passion for teachers and students alike.
For additional information about the competition, you can visit this link http://www.really-learn-english.com/best-english-blog-awards.html. It contains the contest’s scope and how you will be entered as nominee with a feature on our website.
As a nominee, you will be featured in an interview (which we can do by e-mail). This short interview will assist the public on the voting process. Participation in the competition will also require you to display a Best English Blog Awards of 2013 Nominee badge on your blog with a link to the voting section on Really Learn English. So anyone visiting your blog can help you gain more votes!
Public voting will determine the winner and will be made via the Really Learn English website. This will occur sometime between September and October, after which the winner will be announced. The winner will then be featured on Really Learn English and receive a Best Blog Awards of 2013 badge, recognizing his or her outstanding achievements.
Congratulations once again on being selected as a Really Learn English Best Blog Awards of 2013 nominee!
Please get back to me at info@really-learn-english.com to confirm that you would like your blog to participate in the competition. I will then send you your interview questions for the e-mail interview.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like further information on entry details. We’re here to help with any question you may have.
With warm regards,
Heidi Bay
Really Learn English
Hi, Lizzie! I want to follow your career path. I’m interested to become an IELTS speaking examiner. You’ve got a great blog as evidenced by your nomination for the Really Learn English Best Blog. Keep up the good work!
We are all very proud of Lizzie!
Thanks, Pat! 🙂
Hi Lizzie,
I found your blog after you mentioned mine in you post 🙂
It’s great, exactly how I imagined mine would be!
And it’s motivated me to try and write a post or two over the weekend – thank you!
What a lovely comment! Thank you 🙂 Look forward to seeing your posts!
Your own little boat into that big sea of shared knowledge is what John Haycraft, founder of International House, would have liked to have seen, had he been with us. He liked using a similar expression: “flow of ideas”.
🙂
Hi Lizzie!
Its a greate achievement that you have done via this short erra.
I’m not native speaker but your blog enjoyed me ….
Thank you 🙂
Hi Lizzie,
I’d like to thank you for this great blog, which I found very useful while working on my module 3 on teaching multilingual classes (MUL).
To show my appreciation and support, I wondered if you were interested in posting my full extended assignement plus appendices (pass), just to help other candidates in their “quest”.
Monica
Hello
I’m opening a english language course here near salvador (Brazil) the city is called Lauro de Freitas ‘Villas do Atlantico” if you like tropical and surfing this is the place!!!! Well I’m looking for specialist teachers to join our group…so if you would like some more information and apply to the job don’t hesitate just write to the following address ….( i’m brazilian but in the group we have Uk teachers and italian) age it’s not a problem …but we need experienced teachers that loves adventures and new countries and principally loves to teach !!!!!!!!!!!!
contact;
andreaborgessampa@gmail.com
Hey Lizzie,
I’ve been reading your blog and I think the content you post is brilliant.
I’m a language enthusiast myself and along with some friends we’ve started a language app – VocApp. It is a flashcard mobile and website app that provides a number of innovative features, such as creating flashcards from a photo, creating flashcards with your voice, creating flashcards from a text (in just a few seconds you can make a set of words from your favourite song, e.g. http://vocapp.com/wish-you-were-here-pink-floyd-testo-tradotto-flashcards-186864).
I imagine that you must be very busy but if you were interested in testing our app (and possibly writing a short review of it if you want) I could grant you access to our language courses and paid options of our app, so that you can explore it thoroughly.
Keep up the great work! I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Camille
camille@vocapp.com
I would happy to review it for you! Will drop you a line. Sorry for the delay in response, this slipped through the net… Lizzie.
Hi Lizzie, Im doing the DELTA in a few weeks and your website has been invaluable, I just wanted to say thank you because it seems like a really selfless act and so I thought itd be nice to know its appreciated
Thank you Iain, very happy to know my site has helped you. 🙂 Good luck with your DELTA!
Ahmed,
Hi Lizzie , I am preparing to do my Delta in the next few months, and your blog is very helpful in guiding through the details connected to the course.Thank you so much for your great help.
Hi, are you still answering questions about the DELTA ? If so, I have one. Also, I think parts of it have changed as some of Dale Coulter’s ideas are not relevant now.
Hi, Lizzie. I just post to say your blog is great! I’m now teaching English in a middle school in China, and to prepare for the DELTA course. Thanks for the posts on your blog and your notes about English Language teaching. Regards!
Hi Jessica, I am glad you have found it helpful! Good luck with your Delta 🙂 Lizzie
hI Lizzie
I have 2 distinctions for DELTA so far, I’m now doing module 2… I noticed you got a pass for LSA1 but a distinction overrall, could you tell me how it works in module 2 regarding the grades? I’ve heard mixed things, for example some people are saying you don’t need to pass all the LSA’s.. I’m a bit confused. Obviously I will work as hard as possible regardless, but it would b e a bit comforting to know where I stand..
Thank you
Martha
Hi Martha,
Thanks for your message. I am reluctant to advise you as I am not a Delta tutor and it’s been a while since I did mine so how things work may have changed. I suggest asking your tutor about this. Congrats on the distinctions!
Lizzie
No Martha, you don’t need to pass all the LSAs, so don’t worry about that – all you need to do is pass one LSA skills and one LSA systems, with one of those passes obviously being the external,