I have recently answered several interesting questions in my first online interview. However it´s in Czech so here is a little more about me, a few snapshots from my life, in English. I am hoping this will bring me closer to you.
Thanks for reading my blog, being a FB fan and a friend. I really appreciate everyone´s activity and reactions to my work.
In a language school, 2006
I have always worked as a self-employed teacher, both with adults and children, for privately-owned language schools (focusing on adults) and a state school (children 10-15). While teaching privately, one-to-one courses alongside the schools, I slowly started setting up my own small groups.
In spring 2010 I decided to take a break from my f2f teaching. My daughter was born and after 5 years of full-time freelance EFL teaching I was sensing a kind of burn-out coming my way. This time of contemplation opened a whole new world to me, a world where coursebooks don´t make sense and where I finally feel like I found my "Element".
With my daughter, Oct 2011
For the past 4,5 years I have been working solely in my private classroom in the centre of Brno where I can fit up to 6 students. I believe 5-7 people in a group is the perfect number for any type of learning. Recently I have decided to work with women only.
I´d never dared to dream of such fantastic students and such enjoyable work. Do not be mistaken, neither is easy to find. I spend a lot of time on making sure we are the right match for each other and whether they are fit for my non-traditional learning environment. But it pays off. Building an enthusiastic, coursebook-free community of female learners feels good!
And how do I do what I do? Juggling family life and career is surely no piece of cake, after all I have a two-year-old. On some days I succeed better than on others, as every working mom I struggle with time management. But the best part is that none of this feels like work.
See for yourself! Last Wednesday the students cooked dinner for me...
Cooking lesson with Matt (Kurz zážitkové angličtiny), Oct 2011
The last week of September my American colleagues Ginger, Glenn and Aron and I were invited to spend a fabulous weekend with a few of my students, about 30km outside of Brno. We had perfect Indian summer weather and I can´t imagine a more fun and relaxing place to go to.
Czech-English weekend in the countryside, Sept 2011
I enjoy being outside with my students because 1) they always welcome the change and 2) with fresh air speaking English somehow comes more naturally to all of us. Here we are in our backyard.
Working with short-stories (Summer English for Women), Aug 2011
The best part of it all is that my students actually get a chance to speak to native speakers in a very natural environment. We go to pubs, cook, go on trips, walk around Brno, sing or watch movies together. My native speaker friends and colleagues love to work with such enthusiastic students because they see what a difference they really make in their lives when they help them with their English.
Final party of Kurz zážitkové angličtiny, May 2011
I have a new hobby - making videos. I think a short video is worth a thousand words and it´s so easy to make these days so why not show others what happens in your lessons? This is a video from one of my ongoing courses - Kurz zážitkové angličtiny. I recorded it on my Android phone in the very first lesson when the students met each other for the first time, mingled, talked and had a good time. My friend Aaron joined the first part of our lesson and here you can see him speaking with Zdena.
As this term´s "Kurz zážitkové angličtiny" progresses, I´ll be surely making more of those. We´ve already had a pub lesson, a cooking lesson and next week we are going shopping! The new ladies are incredibly active and are working like crazy on their language goals.
My family
Here is to my family who puts up with my freelance work and to my courageous, hard-working students!
Starting this month I am going to be sending out my own newsletter. Here is a copy of the first issue. Should you be interested in receiving my newsletter, please, email me at nina.englishbrno@gmail.com.
Hello and welcome to my first newsletter!
You are receiving this newsletter because you are either a friend, a student or a colleague who I think might benefit from my English learning tips. Here you will find news about the latest trends in language education and my English teaching world - both online and offline.
I will send you the newsletter at the beginning of each month. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please, reply "No, thank you" to this message.
INTRODUCTION
As most of you know, I am an English teacher who likes to do things a bit differently. I am a big fan of learning through video, I make videos myself and I encourage my students to watch and learn from videos. So most of my tips and links will include a video. I believe it´s the shortest and most effective way to learn something new.
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ENGLISHBRNO NEWS:
Kurz zážitkové angličtiny >http://bit.ly/nahravky I completely re-arranged my way of teaching, threw the coursebooks away and it works wonders. Listen to the progress my students have made in my new local course "Kurz zážitkové angličtiny". The new course starts on 14 September, in Brno. Students of intermediate+ level are being accepted now.
English With Film > http://bit.ly/EnglishWithFilm I am planning a series of weekend courses in the coming semester where we´ll work with films and sitcoms. This is a course for students who feel more or less confident speaking in English, intermediate+ levels. Click on the link to see how I work with film. The course starts on 1 October, in Brno, students are being accepted now.
I recently revisited Bristol, UK where my English learning process started, back in 1990 (I was 11 years old). I made a video from our family holiday and also recorded a very interesting interview with our friend, prof. Robert Porter, who speaks fantastic Czech and lectures on Czech and Russian literature.
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LANGUAGE TIPS:
Present Perfect > http://bit.ly/PredpritomnyCas Last year I started recording myself on camera, explaining English grammar in a simple way. All my videos are under 3 minutes. Enjoy the latest one I made on Present Perfect.
Which accent to use > http://bit.ly/WhichAccent This is a video done by a crazy British man called Mr Duncan. I consider Mr Duncan´s Youtube channel a perfect add-on to your studies, his videos are fun, very informative and all subtitled.
This is an absolutely unique website which all my students instantly fell in love with. Watch short videos, all subtitled, and record yourself speaking them, practise vocabulary and improve pronunciation.
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Next month - where to practise English in Brno for free, how to improve your speaking skills and a competition! I will also have some new openings for online lessons with me.
Feel free to contact me anytime, via email or one of my social media websites (see below).
When I was 11, the Iron Wall came down and the Czechs could finally travel abroad. Well... to the West. I used to spend all my childhood vacations in Bulgaria so I couldn't have been more excited to cross the borders to the colourful world called Western Europe, 21 years ago.
But unlike most of my schoolmates' parents, mine didn't take me just across the borders, to Vienna. We went all the way - to the British Isles. In my dad's old Škoda 120L :). And that's where my English Without Books journey started...
I still remember the moment the other Wall came down - my own wall of being shy to speak English. I had been listening to English my whole childhood, coming from the old LPs my dad used to play and friends from abroad who were allowed to enter our communistic world once in a blue moon. But I had never dared to speak.
So when I finally entered the land of The Beatles, in 1990, my dad did the cruelest and, at the same time, the best thing he could for my future EFL journey. He dropped me in his friend's home for two weeks and left for Scotland. Here was my chance to start swimming in the sea called "ENGLISH".
My dad´s friend was Bob Porter. He worked as a proffesor of Czech and lived with his Danish wife and two kids my age in Bristol. Bob was no stranger to me - he had been coming to Brno since 1967 - and his Czech was fluent. However his Danish wife and kids spoke nothing but incomprehensible British English, to me anyways:). And it seemed the kids weren't particularly excited about having yet another girl in their home. So those were tough times for me. But they gave me the push, like everything else in life, to finally start speaking. Until this day I remember the moment of opening my mouth and eventually uttering a few English sentences. From then on it was a given. I´d never returned to Bristol, however the door to the English-speaking world finally opened and I was free as a bird! London, Boston, New York, Chicago, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Rome,...
Now 21 years later I found my way to Bob's house in Bristol again, and it felt so good to be back, with a family of my own. No need to fuss about silly kids' stuff with Bob´s daughters since we are all giving it a good try to act like adults. And I understand everything Lissy, Bob's wife, says, which is probably the biggest reward after all these years of learning English.
And Bristol is such a pleasant city to visit on a summer holiday. The wonderful history, culture, architecture, the port and the numerous parks where you could spent your whole life picnicking... We didn't wan to leave. It's comforting to know it's only 2hrs away by plane, instead of 30hrs by car.
This time I had a flip cam on me and thought it'd be pretty cool to shoot a short film in Bristol. So here you go... (You can also see Anita Adnan and her family in the video. Anita is my fellow EFL colleague whom I met 7 months ago on Facebook and now for the first time in person. She is such an inspiration for me.)
And Bob is such an interesting man to talk to. He likes telling stories about Bristol, explaining the origin of English expressions and genuinely loves foreign languages. He speaks fluent Czech and Russian which is quite odd for a Brit. He befriended Milan Kundera back in the 1960s when Kundera still lived in Brno and the road to the realms of Czech literature less travelled by Brits was on offer, so he gladly took it. Ten years ago Bob published an Introduction to 20th Century Czech Fiction for his students and, although retired, gives lectures on Czech and Russian literature all around the world. Here is the first part of the interview:
The second part where he talks in more detail about his love of Czech literature and language was unfortunately recorded on my mobile phone instead of the flip cam which stopped working halfway through. So I'm sorry about the quality.
Would you like Bob to be a guest blogger on EnglishBrno? Please, leave a comment with suggestions what you'd like to read about.
Happy speaking!
Nina
P.S. I´d like to note that I wrote this blog post in my favourite Brno café Kavárna Locus, enjoying a blueberry mojito and French chansons. If you are from Brno, you simply must come, enjoy the atmosphere and taste their drinks, pastries and meals. And maybe to meet me there one of these days? Let me know.
I have decided to write down my dreams for 2011, hoping to encourage and inspire you to do the same. Yes, it is quite a private matter, I realize that. However I am not ashamed of my dreams and neither should you be. The year 2010 has been a true roller-coaster and thanks to my daughter and the boom of social media, a true life-changer. I hope 2011 will be spectacular!
PHYSICAL
I want to feel healthier and lighter
I want to do fun aerobic exercise 1x a week
I want to find a good personal trainer
I want to follow a healthy diet I want to eat nothing but healthy, tasty food.
I want to cycle a lot more (not only in Brno but the whole CR and Europe)
I want to spend less time on the computer and more time outside
INTELLECTUAL
I want to improve my written English and stylistics
I want to have an excellent website/blog that I L.O.V.E.
I want to be successful at teaching students to become independent learners
I want to learn how to be more organized
I want people to respect me for what I do for a living
EMOTIONAL
I want to be a good parent, following natural parenting guidelines I want to keep making new, interesting friends around the world
I want to be more giving in my relationship
I want to help my fiancé realize his dreams
I want my fiancé to have much more free time I want to inspire others, especially to become happy and independent I want to be strong enough not to worry about what people think of me
SPIRITUAL
I want to read fiction every day for a minimum of 30min
I want to be used to reading about personal development on a regular basis
I want to meditate on a regular basis
I want us to be in the nature more
How about your dreams? Please, share them with me!
Happy New Year and may you be strong and disciplined enough to work on your dreams,
I am not an impressive writer but I am an ENGLISH TEACHER so I will primarily use this space to publish some interesting exercises for my students to improve their English. And possibly I will have the guts to start writing one day.
Looking forward to this new experience.
In the meantime, why don´t you post up your questions about English? I will be happy to help if I can!
