All Trainers are required to have had a successful career in teaching of at least five years and EFL Teacher Training experience for a minimum of three years, although most of them amply exceed this margin. All are active teachers, therefore fully aware of the classroom situations facing teachers today.
- Maribel Boender has a Bachelor’s degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. She has been a teacher for more than fifteen years. She has worked in some of the most prestigious schools and universities in Mexico. On several occasions, she gained recognition as one of the best-evaluated teachers in her institution. She currently resides in the Netherlands, where she has been a co-author of a course book and a workbook for English at college level. She currently works as a freelance English and Spanish teacher and teaches general English, as well as Business English, and Spanish courses. Maribel has been an important force in the initiation, design, and implementation of ITTO’s Teacher Training courses.
- Mary Ann Johnson is originally from Michigan, USA and has a Master’s Degree in TESOL from the University of Leicester. She obtained her Cambridge CELTA teaching certificate in 2006 and her Cambridge DELTA diploma for teaching English to Adults in 2008. She specializes in business English, ESP and has over 10 years’ experience in the ESL field. Mary Ann has lived abroad for over 13 years and has taught in Brazil, Hungary, England, and Germany. Her philosophy as a teacher and tutor is to foster and maintain an open, communicative and supportive environment to achieve the highest learning potential for each individual. In her free time, she enjoys weight training, playing the guitar and hiking.
- Sheila Corwin received her MA degree in TESOL from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, USA, and holds an accredited TESL certificate. She has worked as the academic director and principal trainer for a teacher training center in Florence, Italy. Sheila has taught English language courses at university level in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, in private language schools in Florence, Italy, and in her home state, California, USA.
- Susan Gammage has a Master’s Degree and TESOL certificate, with over 5 years’ experience in online and teleconference distance education courses. Her specialization is TOEFL and she has helped many students prepare for the IELTS. Susan lives in Canada, although she has traveled to many countries and understands the unique needs of students immersed in new cultures. Her students describe her as a great teacher, a calming presence, and completely dedicated to her students.
- Marc Del Alto has been a TEFL teacher for over 23 years. He is a TEFL certified instructor. He graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s of Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Guadalajara. He is currently earning his Master’s of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University of Guadalajara where he joined the faculty as a tutor and a member of the Curriculum Designers Board.
While earning his TEFL degree, Marc achieved specialties in using ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in the ELT (English Language Teaching) classroom, designing ESP (English for Specific Courses), using Teaching Aids, Testing and Evaluation, Curriculum Design, Discourse Analysis, and the Flipped Classrooms Methodology. Furthermore, he is an active academic speaker at the annual TEFL degree convention held at the University of Guadalajara where he has made presentations about language and society, 21st century skills, and flipped classrooms among others.Mr.Del Alto has been training local and foreign TEFL teachers for more than 20 years. His main role at ITTO is to train and observe trainee teachers as well as to provide them with immediate dynamic feedback on their teaching practices, provide guidance on lesson planning and assess teaching practices. Moreover, he consistently teaches his own groups of EFL students at IMAC Ingles Total (an English Language Institution in Guadalajara) where he puts into practice all the techniques, strategies and methods that he will be teaching you through this course.
Needless to say, his goal is to inspire teachers to become effective and successful in the TEFL field by providing professional development to meeting the most demanding standards of teaching delivery in the classrooms. - Edwin Ramirez has a B.A in Language Teaching and has 4 years of experience teaching adults and young adults in Technological Institutes. He has the TKT certification by Cambridge and he is currently studying his Master’s Degree in Translation and Interpreting. In his free tim, he enjoys traveling, playing the drums and swimming.
- Valerie Sis is originally from a small town in Kansas, U.S.A. She received her Bachelor of Science in Education degree from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She obtained her TEFL Certificate in 2012 from WorldTeach, Harvard University, while teaching English in a private language school in Ecuador. Since then, she has also taught English in an orphanage in Honduras and to immigrants of all ages in the United States. Valerie is currently working towards her Masters of Science in Education (with an endorsement in ESOL) from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. What she enjoys most about teaching English is the ability to get to know her students through the activities and conversations in the classroom as well as watching her students succeed outside the classroom. Her greatest strengths in the classroom are her creativity, her adaptability to any situation, and her calm demeanor.
