Last year I wrote a blog post about what I perceived as a commodification of an amazing Buddhist concept: mindfulness, or sati. Today, I would like to go back on the topic, after I’ve recently attended: a one-day Vipassana meditation retreat; a two-hour training session on mindfulness for teachers. I now feel I have familiarised with both …
Category Archives: personal experience
A noob at #Eaquals2017Riga
After five days in Riga, Latvia, for the Eaquals International Conference, I share some thoughts as a first-time conference goer and presenter.
#teacher5aday
I’ve had ups and downs at work lately, and March-April have been and will be hectic. So today I would like to tell you a bit more about what I do to unwind after a long day of teaching, planning and travelling. These things are essential to keeping my motivation — and my life balance.
Five things I love about being a teacher
I know, this post might be a bit cheesy, but today I feel positive so I’d like to share with the blogosphere the reasons why I love teaching, and particularly teaching English in a language school (as opposed to teaching in a primary or secondary state school). Here is goes.
Challenges for 2017
Here we are, the holiday season is over so we are now facing seven months of almost uninterrupted work. This is quite exciting, but also scary as I am going to face a number of challenges that will make everything harder. I think I’ll need to have all my ducks in a row if I …
Noticing in action
Since English is my L2, I’ve started noticing how I retain new vocabulary since I think I can learn a lot as a teacher from this. Read this post to find out what I noticed and see if it is similar to your own experience of learning a second language.
Mindfulness?
Stemming from the news of a school apparently substituting punishment with Mindfulness practices, a range of articles and commentaries have been written in the past few days on the effectiveness of so-called ‘Mindfulness’ for teachers and students. Since I have been growing fond of Buddhism in the last few months, and I have read more than one book on the topic, I would like to add my two cents.
4 new school year resolutions
When a new school year is starting, I find it helpful to set some goals for personal and professional growth — after all our students are not the only ones who need a sense of progress in order to be motivated. So I usually think back about my practice, my lessons and my general teaching …
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
With the new school year come many changes in my life. Here’s just a few.
Primary school nightmare
I’m writing this on a sweltering day here in Italy, so I apologise in advance if any of this is going to sound a bit harsh. I also want to point out that most of the colleagues I met during the experience I am going to describe were great teachers and wonderful colleagues, to whom …