A food-loving ESL Teacher who is learning about, and coming to terms (and maybe has) with technology.

I set up a Twitter account some time ago but never actually used it (and had no intention to in all honesty!). It was only last year whilst coming up with things to add to my Delta PD Assignment that I decided to create a account (@GemmaELT) and ‘follow’ one of the people I worked with (@ITLEgge) who had given (and is still giving) me a lot of sound advice over the years.

That was 2015.

Now, in 2016, it is time for me to take on a new challenge… blogging.

I do ramble. A lot, hence the name of the blog. My ramblings do have an underlying thread. The thing is… I am the only one to see it.

Now the boring stuff…

Unlike a number of my colleagues and virtual contacts, I have only ever worked in Italy- nope, that is factually untrue. I have only ever taught in Italy.

I started teaching in a small English language school in Campania (in the south of Italy) back in 2000. The following year I did my CELTA at the British Council in Naples. After working in the south of Italy for a few years I decided to move up north, to Lombardy. It is sooooo different from the south, it took some getting used to.

I worked a few years in a couple private language schools, as a teacher and then also as a DoS. When I realised it was time to change, I handed in my notice. People thought I was crazy as I had nothing lined up.

I sent my CV to a major cultural and language association. I got a call a few days later. Interviewed the same day. I started teaching there the following day (I still think they must’ve been desperate!). I consider myself really lucky to have got that call as it has given me the opportunity, over the years, to meet and work with some really talented people. I have learnt a great deal from them.

I freelanced for the school for about 10 years (2009-2019) but also got a full-time teaching job in one of the universities here in Milan in feb 2016. This new job finally enabled me to work with multi-lingual classes, I was well pleased! (oops!)

See, told you it was boring (and that I ramble on)!

I have two cats, Cinderella and Kitty Got Lucky ^^

I suppose I should add that I also have a CELTYL and DELTA 1 & 2. I started working on Module 3: Blended Learning/ Online Teaching (which is one of the reasons for my trying to integrate technology into my life) but then opted for CLIL. I opted for CLIL when I gave up my job at the Art Academy (the uni) and started working as a full-time CLIL Geography (lower and upper-secondary) and Art History teacher in a private school.

By the way… taken a break from DELTA 3 as I started an MA in TESOL & Applied Linguistics. All done but the dissertation. Wish me luck!

That’s it for now 🙂

June 2023 Update. This is getting a bit long. Future updates will be on another page.

MA finished in May. Yay!

More news to follow at the end of the month!