BT Rio Chapter Podcast

This BT Rio Chapter Podcast Episode talks about PBL with a special twist. That special twist was the year 2020, which brought us COVID-19 and subsequent school lockdowns. In the necessary transition to online teaching, teachers have resorted to projects as a form of delivering content and keeping students minimally engaged. This change has not come without immense challenges, some of which will be focus of this episode. To talk about this and a little more, we have a special guest. Selma Nunes holds a BA in Portuguese/English and a post graduation in Applied Linguistics from UERJ in Rio. She has taught at companies, private schools and language schools in Rio de Janeiro for more than 20 years. She’s been a public school English language teacher since 2001. She’s also an English teacher at CEC - Barra and Colégio Zaccaria. She has experience in teaching children, teenagers and adults.

How has your experience in the classroom helped you as book author/content editor? Why should teachers try their hand in publishing/materials design? What advice would you give to starting teachers who are thinking of specializing in materials design? Our guest, Flavia Miguel, English teacher at local and state schools, content editor and materials writer, shares some of her seasoned experience about materials writing with our audience in this episode.  She can be reached at [email protected]

Hugo Dart has been a teacher for over 22 years. Since 2010, he has been employed at IBEU-RJ, working with EFL, CLIL, and teacher education. At NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education), he specialized in intercultural education and in teacher training. He is the Communications Coordinator of the BRAZ-TESOL Intercultural Language Education SIG. In this episode we discuss future of the SIGS, what it was like organizing the Teachers' Month webinars and what the ILE SIG has in store for this and next year. You can listen to episodes 19 and 20 to hear what John Corbett, the president of the ILE SIG has to say about creating conversation in the classroom. You can reach the SIG at @bt.ile.sig.

In this episode, we interview Mariana Casals, an English teacher, proofreader and materials writer based in Rio. A Celta holder and frantic course taker, she has more than 15 years work experience at age 32. We chat about the work of copy editing in ELT, the changes in course design and materials, especially those that are here to stay, and where the area is heading. Mariana can be found online at @teachercasals on Instagram and Facebook.

Successfully preparing TOEFL IBT takers Sandro Dwarffy is a licensed Spanish language teacher, TOEFL Trainer, digital entrepreneur and founder of both TOEFL Success and Global English 4U. Sandro has fallen in love with foreign language teaching in the early 2000s and has been a TEFL teacher for more than 15 years. Sandro is based in Rio de Janeiro and has been mainly delivering online TOEFL preparation training and other language learning solutions as a freelance language tutor. His strengths lie in his ability to build rapport with adult learners, meet their educational needs, updated teaching expertise, CPD, strategic intelligence, focus on results and excellent interpersonal skills. Sandro Dwarffy holds the CAE, CPE, TKT Modules 1-3 certificates (Cambridge, UK) and a C2-level D.E.L.E. certificate (Instituto Cervantes, Spain In this podcast, our guest talks about these questions, in addition to his go-to resources for lesson materials 1. TOEFL iBT and TOEFL ITP - differences and similarities for exam trainers and candidates? 2. What are some of biggest concerns when preparing students for the TOEFL? 3. Do you get any impossible requests from candidates, like for example they want to take the exam in one month's time and are at pre intermediate level? 4. Do you use official materials or design your own to prepare candidates? Follow him on Instagram at @toefl4success for more. Reach us on Instagram as well at @bt_riochapter for suggestions and more tips for language teaching and professional development.

                                                                                        What I love about teaching is that I’m the first one to learn. English and Portuguese consultant for Altitude Career Coaching, our guest Andrea Mataruna reminds us of the joy of planning and preparing materials for our classes and the benefits they bring to our personal growth.  In this episode, we talk about the connection between Professional Development, Professional Learning, Self assessment and Self Regulation and provides practical tips on how teachers can make the right choices to grow professionally while investing in their mental and emotional health.  Her post on Communication skills can be found here https://altitudecareercoaching.com/communication-checkup/ She can be found online at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreamataruna/ https://www.facebook.com/aplusenglishpage Instagram: @aplusenglishpage

Our Advisory Board member Eduardo Mazzeu gives us his top tips for dealing with listening activities. This was part of the BT Rio Night Live event, broadcast on Instagram on March 29th, 2020.

Our guest this episode is Tamires Gama, an online English teacher with over four years of experience under her belt and owner of SIMPLIFICA. She talks a little more about her presentation in our online event held on July 4 and 5, 2020 called Overcoming Challenges in Education and gives some incredible insights on the following topics: The impact technical and pedagogical issues have on online learning; Tips and best practices for online instruction Moments in which things go wrong in online teaching. 

What is prosodic training in language teaching and why is it important? Our guest and teacher trainer Aline Coutinho goes into more detail about the role of the awareness prosody plays in relaying information and conveying meaning. She also explains how sensitizing learners can improve their listening skills. In addition, the episode covers the following topics: Examples of melodic and rhythmic cues we don't usually notice; Practical activities teachers can use to promote prosodic training Ways to raise student awareness of the benefits prosodic training can bring to their listening skills Advice for teachers to develop their own knowledge of English prosody Aline can be found on Instagram at @movaaceleradora Follow us on Instagram at @bt_riochapter, send us a message or suggest new topics for our podcast!

To motivate our students, all we need are games, right? Well, our advice is you grab a cup of coffee,  sit tight and listen in to our guest Bruno Albuquerque as he makes the connection (or lack thereof) between games, gamifying a lesson and motivating students in the language classroom. Our talk dealt with the following issues: The 5 CORE Elements of games The differences between games and gamification teachers should be aware of The drawbacks to the use of rewards in (language) learning contexts The strategies that can be used when students shun the use of games in the classroom The intrinsic challenges in motivating others Our guest can be reached on Instagram as @brunoalbuqrq.  Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at @bt_riochapter.  Thanks for listening!