New teachers
We're welcoming a lot of new teachers this month—7, to be exact! Here's a little bit about them (be sure to use their profile link to get to know them better):
- Kumbi: joins us from Zimbabwe where he works with international students, teaching English and helping them in many other ways. He has a passion for business and has a great deal of training and experience in the field.
- Huda: is from Lebanon and, besides teaching English, works as a scientific researcher in the pharmaceutical industry. As a non-native speaker of English, she understands the challenges of learning the language and uses her personal experience to help others reach fluency.
- Katya: was born and raised in Belarus and also knows the joys and frustrations of learning English as a second language. She succeeded in becoming fluent, however, and earned a degree in linguistics and language teaching—both English and German—and currently teaches Russian, too!
- Homam: lives in Montreal and speaks both English and French. He specializes in business English and has worked with many international companies, training their staff to speak fluently and communicate more effectively in business contexts.
- Tereza: was born and raised in Bulgaria then moved to the U.S. to go to college. She stayed for another 20 years before relocating recently to Madrid, Spain. In her career in the corporate world, she worked as a meeting planner and is also a certified Project Manager.
- Dani: is American and has taught English both at home and in Chile and Spain. Her specialty is preparing students for IELTS and TOEIC, but she also loves teaching pronunciation. When not teaching, she's an artist and art instructor with her own business.
- Danielle: comes to us from England, where she was born and educated. She spent a number of years in Sri Lanka, teaching English to students unable to afford classes. During that time she worked with people from many different cultural backgrounds. Currently she is homeschooling her youngest child (of 5), as well as working with authors as an editor and publicist.
Employee of the month: Hina
Our congratulations go to Hina for winning November's Employee of the Month award! On top of being a caring teacher, Hina has also been doing other things around TEF, including translating, updating in-house courses, writing blog posts, and helping with TEF's long-term content roadmap to address common English tests.
Hina has chosen to donate her award money to AMI-Quebec, an organization devoted to supporting the family and loved ones of a person with mental illness. In her words,
Many people are struggling to manage their mental health because of the pandemic and recurring lockdowns. I choose to donate to AMI-Quebec, because it provides access to resources to care for ourselves and our family and friends. Ça va bien aller—it will get better!
Be safe, everyone,
Di