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Fiona Prendergast - Project Coordinator
Over the past 12 years, Fiona has taught English as a foreign language (EFL) in Poland, the Czech Republic and Spain, and run in-service teacher training courses in Mongolia for three of those. She has also worked in publishing for five years in Poland, the UK and Kenya. She taught English to speakers of other languages (ESOL), as well as information technology (IT), in the Further Education (FE) college in Bristol, UK, before becoming coordinator on this project. She is currently studying part-time for a masters with specialisms in Language and Literacy and Comparative Education. She was born and brought up in London. She has some knowledge of German, rather more of Czech, and a possible comprehension of Italian, from knowledge of Spanish and French.
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Sylvia Mingay - Transnational Projects Manager
Sylvia Mingay started her teaching career as a business studies teacher. She has been actively engaged with European funding for education since 1994. She has managed a large number of projects with partners from all over the European Union. |
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Jo-Ann Delaney - Head of Skills for Life PDC
Jo-Ann has been working in FE in the UK for almost 10 years. She has taught mainly EFL and ESOL and has done some Foreign Language teaching. For the last 6 years she has run teacher training courses for ESOL teachers and has been working on the development of the new courses to meet the skills for life requirements. Prior to coming to the UK, she worked as an English language lecturer at the University of Tuebingen in south-west Germany. She speaks German and French and can get by in Spanish. She grew up in the south-east of Ireland, but has lived outside Ireland for the last 24 years.
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Peter Mayhew-Smith - Director of the Faculty of General Education
Peter has worked as a Skills for Life practitioner for sixteen years now, starting out as a community education tutor in west London, where he held a succession of roles including home learning manager, creative writing co-ordinator and equal opportunities officer as well as teaching quite an array of different courses. He also co-wrote a guide to London for people with disabilities ('Access in London', published by Nicholsons). He was appointed as a community education advisor to the Local Authority's Education Committee in Richmond in 1993. He then moved to South Thames College and managed the Basic and Key Skills provision there while contributing to a number of local and regional projects including inspection visits for the BSA Quality Mark and the establishment of one of the first Summer Colleges for year 11 children at risk of exclusion and under-achievement. He came to Lewisham College in 1998 as Head of Key Skills and then, in 2001, moved into the role of Director of our Faculty for Foundation Studies, with a remit for Basic and Key Skills, ESOL. learning disabilities and learning support. |
UK Teacher Trainers |
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Penny Piggott - Quality Manager
Penny has been working in FE for over 30 years, initially as a part-time EFL teacher and later full-time teaching EFL, ESOL and language support. She subsequently became the Programme Leader for EFL and then in 1998 Head of the School of English which included both ESOL and EFL. During her time as Head of School, the school underwent a rapid expansion as they put on additional ESOL courses to respond to students' needs. They also took part in a Pathfinder Project which involved in depth studies of aspects of the students' learning experience.
In 2003 she decided that, having passed the usual retirement age, it was time for her to move in to an area of work which enabled her to devote more time to quality issues connected with teaching and learning. She therefore took a Training the Trainers course at International House to enable her to become a recognised teacher trainer.
Since January 2004 she has been involved in CELTA teacher training courses - both the initial training and the Certificate in FE for ESOL Specialists. The other aspect of her work involves monitoring and supporting the quality of ESOL teaching in the colleges' outreach provision in the community and also the provision of ESOL to workers in the construction industry through Trade Union Studies. She very much enjoys the range and variety of her current work.
She speaks French and has a knowledge of Spanish which should enable her to make some sense of Italian.
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Cazz Randall - Numeracy Teacher Trainer
Cazz's background is engineering - she has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has worked for some time as a research engineer, specialising in fluid mechanics. Whilst involved in research she was asked to teach some mathematics to women returners on an engineering course and so began her career in teaching. She has held a number of different posts at Lewisham - all related to maths and numeracy in one way or another. She is interested in the "hidden" maths that people do as part of a vocational programme, or in their daily work, and has had three papers published on this subject. She is involved in the project as a numeracy teacher trainer, developing and delivering the Level 4 numeracy programme. |
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Tracy Part - Numeracy Teacher Trainer
Tracy has been teaching for just over 12 years. In this time she has taught all subjects classified here in the UK as Skills for Life: numeracy, literacy, IT and ESOL.
She has worked in a further education setting for 8 years, specialising mainly in teaching numeracy, but has also taught in a number of different informal educational settings (and countries including Mongolia) including a centre for street children and teaching ESOL in prisons. She is presently working as a numeracy teacher trainer in the Professional Development Centre at Lewisham Further Education College, London.
She has recently completed a Masters in International Human Rights Law - not particularly numerate, but it has enabled her to develop her research skills that she thinks complement her experience as a numeracy practitioner.
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Maxine Harraway - ESOL Teacher Trainer
Maxine has been working in FE in the UK for over 11 years. She has taught mainly EFL and ESOL and has gradually become more and more involved in teacher training. She has run teacher training courses for both EFL and more recently ESOL teachers. She joined the PDC in Lewisham in January 2004, and has continued working on the development of the new courses to meet the skills for life requirements. More recently she has become involved in giving workshops and sessions for staff development, something she is very much enjoying. She speaks fluent Italian having spent some years there in the past, where she set up many courses and also ran her own private language school for some time. She is currently completing a part-time degree in fine art, for personal satisfaction, and is specialising in photography. |
