Who We Are?

Hello, my name is Rachel. I am a master students majored in Applied Linguistics and TESOL in Newcastle University. I come from XI’AN which is in the northern part of China. After my graduation from my undergraduate program in English studies, I had one year experience of teaching English online. My students were young learners and this experience was my first time to teach online and I really enjoyed my time with my students.

Throughout these lessons, I did not only witness my students’ learning, I also regarded myself as a learner. Also, it was my first time to know how the digital devices help teaching. When preparing for the lessons, I got the opportunities to review my knowledge. When my students faced problems, this offered me the chance to think why students would have these problems and how could these problems be tackled. This experience help me become a better teacher. In order to improve my profession, I chose to study TESOL at Newcastle University.

This is also the time when I first get to know proPIC Europa, which is a project that aims at fostering cultural, reflective, and collaborative exchange among prospective language teachers from different universities in regard to the use of digital technologies in teaching.

Hello, everyone. I am Ivy from China, studying MA in Applied Linguistics & TESOL at Newcastle University. The major of my undergraduate in English Translation. After the first year, I have been to Portugal to learn Portuguese Application for the rest of my undergraduate. I only have been to a primary school in Portugal to teach Chinese for an after-school course as my teaching experience. Then, I realized that teaching a foreign language is different from teaching the native language, even at the beginning. At that moment, I decided to be an English teacher in China. Therefore, I chose this degree in Newcastle. Also, because of the development of new technology, schools begin to use technique devises, websites and apps to assist students from the first grades. However, based on my experience, there are plenty of students who focus on entertainment with technology. Thus, their parents ignore the benefits which the technology developments bring to the students’ group. They treat the internet as a monster which influences their kids’ study, especially in Chinese educational environment. Based on this background, I really would like to learn how to use technology suitable and usefully. I hope that my students could be attracted by gaining new knowledge with new technology.

Hey, Guys. I am Annie from China, studying MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at Newcastle University. In fact, my major in undergraduate is business English. However, the part-time job that I did during the undergraduate study in one of the famous English centres changed my life. Since then, I began my career as an English teacher to teach students from 9 to 18 years old with Cambridge English and THiNK teaching materials. Basically, the teaching methods applying in this centre are more interactive, which is different from the regular classes at schools. And these working experience broaden my horizons and arise my interest in English teaching.

However, we rarely combine technology and teaching together in the class and I am very bad at taking advantage of these technologies. Thus, learning how to apply technology, such as videos, online activities are so important for me, since technology currently play an important role in Education.

Hopefully, I can get more familiar with apply technology in my English teaching, and create more and more creative activities in my lessons.