How Do English Teachers Keep Developing? Carolina Cunha & Kamlesh Thakkar – S03E04

How do you keep growing as an English teacher once you’ve earned your qualifications? And can years of experience ever make you overqualified for the classroom?Gav and Em welcome Brazil-based teacher and trainer Carolina Cunha, who shares how her career took a different path from the one she expected. After years in language schools, further study and qualifications including the TKT and CELTA, she felt stuck in a repetitive role. Becoming a freelance teacher gave her new opportunities to design personalised lessons and rethink what success meant to her.Gav and Em then compare their own comfort zones. Em talks about adapting to online teaching and researching unfamiliar industries for Business English students. Gav explains how he responds to topics students raise and uses questions to make worksheets more conversational. They also discuss workshops, lesson observations and the challenge of designing a course around learners’ needs.To finish, Kamlesh Thakkar gives a short explanation of the present simple, with examples of habits, facts and permanent situations.Read Carolina’s article, “I Am Not Overqualified For This, Lessons Learned in Time”: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10qWM1UvOLwAR-A-2bpeorqr1LbbbWryy/viewFind Carolina’s work: https://linktr.ee/ccunha.solucoeslinguisticasInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccunha.solucoeslinguisticas/Find more practical teaching ideas and ready-to-use resources at https://howtoenglishpod.com. If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpodChapters00:00 Welcome and the question of teacher development01:41 Introducing Carolina Cunha02:43 Carolina’s career and feeling overqualified06:45 Growth mindset and becoming a freelance teacher10:19 Gav and Em discuss different career paths14:58 Stepping outside a teaching comfort zone16:26 Adapting to online teaching17:44 Tailoring lessons for unfamiliar industries19:20 Responding to students’ interests22:30 What skills do teachers bring to class?25:37 Workshops, colleagues and lesson observations26:54 Training through a five-minute mini-lesson29:23 Making more personal worksheets31:30 Designing a course around learners’ needs34:44 Kamlesh Thakkar explains the present simple