Meet Our Trainers

He first worked for RMIT University, Melbourne, where he designed and delivered a range of specialist programs including English for Oil and Gas for Vietnamese engineers, and Aviation English for Chinese pilots. James became a CELTA tutor in 1998, and has taught hundreds of teacher training courses for prospective and current school teachers from Australia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. James is an IELTS examiner and has an MA in Applied Linguistics.

Dimitris has taught a wide range of ages, levels and nationalities. He has had the pleasure of training teachers as part of his various management roles, and he is always happy to offer his advice to both practicing and prospective EFL teachers. In his free time, he enjoys learning new languages, listening to music and reading psychology books.

When Alexander first went overseas to teach it was because he was not ready to settle back home after doing his OE in the United Kingdom. He thought he would be teaching in Asia for a few years and then would eventually come home – eventually ended up being over fifteen years!

In order to improve he also gained a Masters in TESOL by distance. Alexander hopes he can share a few life lessons and his passion for teaching to aspiring teachers. Teaching ESOL can be a gateway to many exciting experiences and adventures and he hopes that studying with The TEFL Academy can be the first step on a wonderful journey for his student teachers.

With 30 years of teaching experience, she’s taught both Russian and English languages at
various levels from secondary school to university, as well as to corporate clients. She has
been privileged to work with renowned organisations such as the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC), Home Language International, National Opera Studio, and
Glyndebourne Opera House. She provides face-to-face and online tuition for every level of
language proficiency and specialises in IELTS preparation.
Ana is also a professional web designer and the founder of a UK-based digital
communication agency. She has taught Web Design and Digital Communication courses for
8 years.
In her spare time, Ana is involved in dog training and likes nothing better than going on a
hike or a bike ride with her beloved dog.

After moving from Indiana to Scotland and graduating with a master’s degree in TESOL from the University of Edinburgh, Gina moved to the island of Malta where she spent 7 years teaching English to students from all over the world, ranging from beginner to advanced level.  During this time, she developed a love for creating materials that helped students to use the language in meaningful ways. After sharing these with her colleagues and seeing the benefit they had for both students and teachers, she chose to self-publish a resource book on Amazon called ‘On the Go English’

During his time abroad, he taught English in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms, in both private and public schools, and also taught adults at a private language institute.  These experiences taught him the joys and challenges not only of teaching English abroad, but also navigating new cultures and places.  Now returned to the US, he’s excited to share his passion of teaching, service, and culture with new ESL teachers.

Since then he visited and taught in countless countries. During his time in Africa, he has worked with various charity organisations including helping with the Ghana rice feeding program and working with local and international organisations in the fight against diseases like Malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS. He is now based semi-permanently in South Africa.
He has thousands of hours face to face and online classroom teaching experience.  As well as TEFL, He is able to teach IELTS, Cambridge Advanced, Cambridge First, Cambridge Key, CLIL and TEYL.
He has taught a wide array of students from young learners aged 4-5 at Level 1 (no exposure to English) all the way through to successful company directors with a solid grasp and understanding of English. He finds teaching, tutoring and training a rewarding and fulfilling career and feels watching someone’s journey from a beginner to an advanced level and interacting with them is an opportunity that few other jobs allow.

He started out teaching children and high school students before later working full-time teaching Business English at Japanese multinational corporations and colleges. After some 20 years in Thailand, Japan and the Philippines, Simon returned to the U.K. and has been teaching Academic English at universities since

Helen has worked in several countries teaching young learners, teenagers and adult learners in a wide range of contexts. While doing CELTA, Helen had fantastic tutors and decided to be like them in the future. After she finished DELTA and had some experience of training teachers, Helen qualified as a Cambridge CELTA trainer and have been delivering CELTA and other teacher training courses.

As an Academic manager of a private language school, Helen was in charge of training new and experienced native and non-native teachers and helped them to progress in their careers.

Helen loves training teachers and seeing how they develop, become more confident and enjoy teaching!