Erasmus+ | Delta modul 2, Sofia

Delta M2 in Sofia

I work as an English language teacher for International House Bratislava. In July 2022, I was lucky to be given the chance to take the next logical step in my teaching career and take a DELTA course. I started with module 2 through a Blended learning module with AVO Language & Examination Centre, based in Sofia, Bulgaria. During the first month, I wrote the Experimental Practice, part of the Professional Development Assignment. I chose to focus on Task-Based Learning and implemented the approach during a couple of my lessons in Bratislava. I thought it was efficient to be able to focus on the PDA prior to starting the course face to face.

In July, I flew to Sofia and met my two coursemates, respectively from New Zealand and England. We were all from different backgrounds with different types of experiences, teaching Business English, Exam classes and Young Learners. Together, we covered a wide scope of types of classes and experience in monolingual and multilingual environments therefore we were able to support each other during the course and offer different points of view during peer-observations.

Shortly after arriving in Sofia, we also met our volunteer students for our diagnostic observation lesson. The students were all willing and eager to learn. More importantly, they understood the course, which made them very flexible and accepting of our shenanigans: different pairs, different groups, different setups, preference forms, feedback forms and so on. It was also my first contact with Bulgarian culture, which I found rather laid-back and suitable for a summer course.

During those five weeks, we taught and observed each other in the morning and had input sessions in the afternoon. The input sessions varied from classroom management to specific lesson planning in skills and systems. The tutors also helped us study the criteria in order to prepare our lesson plans and background essays rigorously. We generally spent our evenings writing up the dreaded yet harmless 2500 word essays and preparing our lesson plans. All in all, once the routine set in, it was a pleasant experience. I consider myself lucky to have been part of a small group of teachers as we were able to work with a different tutor for the first three assignments. Each of them had a different methodology which prepared us for the final assignment to work on alone. I feel that I gained new perspectives and I am looking forward to implementing new ideas in my future teaching career.


Theo Zidi



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