A journey into learning

I’ve been an English Teacher for almost 20 years now. One might think I have learnt something along the way. Well, I’m not quite sure. I have taught English in Hungary, trained teachers in the Middle East, worked for a publishing company in the UK. I lived in Iraqi Kurdistan for 9 fantastic months. Worked at one of the most exciting airlines in the world in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. I taught in a secondary school and mentored a brilliant group of fantastic English teachers in Sharjah, UAE. In 2010 I came back to Hungary with my wonderful wife and my 4-month-old daughter. Since then we have lived in a small town in 34 kms from Budapest.
From March 2010 to November 2011 in bulletpoints

•  April, 2010 – went to IATEFL UK in Harrogate with the whole family.
• May, 2010 – ran into the owner of the larges PLS in Hungary and got a job offered, which sounded too good to be true.
• It WAS too good to be true, so I left after 2 months. – My shortest ever job.
• July, 2010 – Got another job offered at Euroexam. Much more fun. Great job, great people to work with. Developing free online exam preparation courses with synchronous and asynchronous elements.
• August, 2010 – Decided to take in a 14-year-old boy, my nephew for a year, to help him through a difficult patch. – The toughest call of my life.
• August, 2010 – I was approached by the then head of IATEFL-H, Lívia Faragó, if I wanted to be a member of the executive committe of IATEFL Hungary.
• September, 2010 – got a phone call from my boss from 10 years earlier, asking me to cover for someone who had left without much warning at the beginning of the academic year. After a day’s contemplation I said ‘yes’ and landed on a 24-period a week commitment in the city centre (for a pittance), in addition to the job I had already had.
• October, 2011 – became a member of the management committee of IATEFL-H. Great bunch of people to work with.
• January, 2011 – we learnt we were expecting another baby. Realised that I had to to my Master because with two kids I would be even less likely to be able to do it.
• May, 2011 – submitted my MA
• June, 2011 – finished the school year exhausted and squeezed out completely
• June, 2011 – nephew finished primary school (which is Grade 8 in Hungary) and moved back – still not sure if we have done any good for him, only time will tell
• July, 2011 – spent two fantastic and difficult weeks with Prievara Tibi at the PeopleTeam summer camp mentoring and supporting trainee teachers.
• July, 2011 – I was awarded my MA. A huge relief.
• July, 2011 – Barbara Sakamoto asked if I wanted to become part of the iTDi initiave, got very excited about it.
• August, 2011 – went to the UK for a couple of days and was hit by nostalgia and a yearning for the place and the people
• September, 2011 – Went to Palestine with two fantastic trainers organised by Macmillan Education. Had a great time and met some wonderful people there again.
• October, 2011 – IATEF-H conference. Did a lot of things, had a great time and met some amazing people.
• 26th October, Jasmin our second daughter was born.

Fun days and years to come.