Hello everyone!

Hello everyone! I'm Martin. I live and work in southern Taiwan, and I’ve been teaching English as a foreign language for almost eight years. I worked in Korea for a short time before coming to Taiwan, and I’ve taught learners of all ages and levels of ability.

At the moment, I teach on intensive foreign language and business programmes for Taiwanese university graduates who want to work overseas and/or in management, so my current learners are mostly advanced in terms of English ability and are also highly motivated.

What I hope to get out of this course are some fresh ideas – although I’ve been teaching for a few years now, I do feel that I need to keep learning how to teach (better). I also want to find ways to identify any bad habits that might prevent my teaching from being as effective as it ought to be.

Some topics I’d like us to address include:
- meaningful and useful techniques for reflective teaching, (especially techniques that can be used by busy teachers);
- how to identify ‘bad habits’ in one’s own teaching (and deal with them);
- how to develop a greater sense of cultural awareness and be able to judge which teaching methods and tasks will work in different contexts;
- techniques for managing learner expectations and keeping them motivated throughout a course or term, and
- how to set realistic long-term plans and goals for professional development as a teacher of English.

A little more about me – I’m originally from Yorkshire, England, but I’m now happily settled here in Taiwan with my wife (who is Taiwanese) and our two daughters. In my free time – whenever I have any(!) – I enjoy reading, running, art, and drinking quality coffee.

I’m looking forward to (virtually) meeting you all and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the course! Thanks.

Comments

  1. Francesca Di MambroNovember 2, 2017 at 3:13 AM

    Hi Martin. I'm from the UK too! I would also like a way to identify my bad habits and correct them. Good to meet you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Martin CookeNovember 2, 2017 at 7:15 AM

    Hi Francesca Di Mambro, thanks, good to meet you too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anne HendlerNovember 2, 2017 at 4:53 PM

    Nice to meet you Martin. I worked in Korea, too. I've always wanted to visit Taiwan. And I'm really interested in some of the topics you mentioned, especially about cultural awareness and reflective teaching for busy teachers - I feel you there!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Scott GrayNovember 3, 2017 at 5:23 AM

    Good to have you here Martin. I would suggest videoing some of your classes but not you. Just video your students and see what you can see of your actions and teaching by how they react. Also and the hard part with video reviews is get away from judgments of good, bad, or whatever and go towards observations of what the students did when you did x. Then make some change and see how their reactions changed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Julia BlinovaNovember 4, 2017 at 5:54 AM

    Hi Martin Professional development is something I've interested for quite some time. I'm looking forward to you sharing your experience

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hannah McCullochNovember 5, 2017 at 3:14 AM

    Hi Martin! Really fascinating meeting people from all corners of the world and to hear about someone from the UK now settled in Taiwan! I think you made another interesting point about free time which should also be a focus on this course. Although we all love what we do (most of the time!) and try to make our students happy, I think it’s vital that we look out for ourselves. I know I have time management issues in my personal life and I don’t even have kids yet! Enjoy the course.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Martin CookeNovember 5, 2017 at 6:10 AM

    Scott Gray Thanks for the suggestion - I'm actually planning on filming some of my classes this week.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Scott GrayNovember 10, 2017 at 10:19 PM

    Commented on another post about this but great job. Getting your coworkers to do it with you helps but is hard to get started and keep going. But so worth it when you get it up and running.

    ReplyDelete

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