The LAMSIG Committee
Gerhard Erasmus – Co-ordinator
Gerhard has been teaching in Asia for almost 20 years and currently lives in Taipei, Taiwan with his wife and three children. Over the last 10 years, he has worked as Teacher, Teacher Trainer, Assessor, Academic Manager, and Director of Studies. He is still actively involved in teacher training and tutors on various courses including the Trinity Certificate in TESOL, Trinity Young Learners Extension Certificate (TYLEC), Cambridge DELTA Module 2 and Cambridge Train the Trainer.
He has been an active member of IATEFL for almost a decade and used to serve on the Marketing and Membership Committee. His main interests are professional development for teachers, coaching and mentoring. He contributes to a variety of ELT related magazines and blogs and has written a number of course books and teacher books. When he is not working or writing, he enjoys board games, sports (especially cricket), and is a hobby magician.
Gerhard’s qualifications include an MSc Education, Cambridge DELTA, Post Graduate Certificate Education (Senior Phase and Vocational Education and Training) and the IDLTM (International Diploma in Language Teaching Management). He is currently working towards an EdD in Organisational Leadership.
Andy Hockley
Andy is a freelance educational management consultant and teacher trainer based in deepest Transylvania. After 11 years of teaching English worldwide, he completed an MA in International and Intercultural Management. Subsequently he worked as a project manager at the School for International Training, including participating in the curriculum working party that developed the International Diploma in Language Teaching Management (IDLTM). He has been coordinating and training on the IDLTM since its inception in 2001. He is co-author of “From Teacher to Manager” (CUP, 2008) and “Managing Education in the Digital Age” (The Round, 2014) and sole author of “Educational Management” (Polirom, 2007). He has been a member of the LAMSIG committee for many years, is responsible for the SIG’s online presence, and became coordinator in 2015. He can be contacted at: [email protected]
Marina Gonzalez
Marina González i
s a graduate from UCAECE in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She teaches ELT Management and Materials Design at the BA for language teachers. She also coordinates the English Department at Universidad de Flores (UFLO). She has held managerial positions in medium and large sized language organisations since 1995. Also a researcher in both universities, her research interests focus on Complexity Theory and Professional Development. She has presented her work and delivered plenaries in different countries of South and North America, and Europe.
Liam Brown
Liam has been ‘in’ learning and development all his working life. It’s been his world for four decades. He knows it as an experienced teacher, manager, trainer, speaker and consultant working on achieving excellence at work through communication, collaborative learning, management and decision making.
He worked extensively in Asia, the Middle East and UK for the British Council – the UK’s international organization for education opportunities and cultural relations – for 29 years, including Director of the prestigious Professional Development Centre in Singapore and latterly from 2002 to 2017 as Learning and Development Manager for the worldwide English and Exams Strategic Business Unit.
In that role he was responsible for designing and delivering business-wide learning initiatives and interventions for managers, teachers, examinations administrators, specialist and support staff.
Based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he now works independently with individuals, businesses and ELT institutions around the world.
Liam specialises in L&D programme design for management and staff and increasingly with a new focus on BiteSize programmes and “Awaydays” to help people spend more time ‘on the business’ rather than ‘in the business’.
Katherine Martinkevich
Katherine is a past LAM SIG IATEFL scholarship winner (2016) and has given regular talks on English language teaching and academic management at IATEFL and other international and local conferences. She holds an M.Ed. from Minsk State Linguistic University (1999), Cambridge CELTA, IH CELTYL, Cambridge Delta, IH Certificate in Educational Management, and is currently studying towards her second Master’s at NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education).
From 2014 to 2019 she worked as an academic manager at the British Council Ukraine and is now a member of the British Council English Online team, as well as a Professional Skills trainer and course writer. She blogs about teaching, learning and managing at Kate’s ELT Crate eltcrate.wordpress.com.
She spends her free time reading science fiction and fantasy, working out at the gym, listening to extreme metal, watching Asian dramas, or doing all of it at once.
Alex Walls
Alex is the Director of Studies at Windsor English Language School in Moscow, where he has lived since 2017. Prior to this he spent several years teaching in Uzbekistan, China and Oman. Alex has presented at a number of local conferences in Moscow and was a recipient of the LAM SIG scholarship (2020), presenting at IATEFL in 2021 on the topic of student satisfaction. His qualifications include CELTA (pass B), CELTA YL extension and Delta. When not teaching, training or managing, Alex is often adding to his website or YouTube channel with the goal of improving standards and professionalism in ELT.
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.alexwallselt.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/AlexWallsELT
Josh Round
Josh Round has nearly 20 years of professional experience in ELT and has mainly worked in London-based language schools, firstly as a teacher on General and Business English courses, then as a teacher trainer on Trinity TESOL Certificate and Diploma programmes, before becoming a Director of Studies in 2005.
Josh started teaching in 1992, initially as a Drama teacher, and also enjoyed a moderately successful career as a theatre, TV and film actor, combining both jobs over a period of 10 years.
After ‘retiring’ from acting to focus on English Language Teaching, Josh became Trinity Diploma qualified, and later gained the English UK Diploma in ELT Management. He has been part of LONDOSA – the DoS Association in London – for many years, and became Chair in 2011; he joined the IATEFL LAM SIG Committee in 2014. Josh is a regular presenter at conferences, has delivered training sessions for English UK, and has been involved in co-organizing several successful ELT conference events.
As Director of Studies at St Giles International London Central, he enjoys the process of quality management, ensuring excellent study experiences for international students, and the challenge to continuously improve the teaching team, and develop himself.
He speaks Spanish, French, German and Catalan, but has never worked abroad.
He blogs from time to time on aspects of academic management at www.BetheDoS.wordpress.com
Evrim Üstünlüoğlu
Evrim Üstünlüoğlu is based in Izmir-Turkey working as an associate professor at the Izmir University of Economics. She has been an English instructor and also worked as the director of School of Foreign Languages for many years. As a director, she has overseen the coordination, curriculum and material development, exam development, and extra curricular activities of the intensive English program. As a faculty member, she has taught English at different levels, organized international and national conferences/activities, conducted research, and also participated in several international/national projects. She has publications on quality in higher education, pedagogical competencies of faculty members, and approaches in teaching in international and national journals. She has been awarded scholarships to conduct research and to teach as a visiting scholar abroad. She is the founding member of a national language education accreditation association and TESOL Turkey; and she has certificates on accreditation reviewing. Her expertise and interests are quality in education, program development, methodology and designing thinking.
Evrim’s qualifications include MA degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Ph.D in Educational Sciences.
Lucía Marotta
Lucía Marotta has been working in the EFL industry since 2007. She has vast experience teaching students of different ages, levels and contexts. She has taught English as a foreign language in primary schools, secondary schools, language schools, colleges and universities. She also counts with 7 years of experience managing teaching teams, both in Uruguay and Ireland.
Lucía is based in Ireland, where she works as the Director of Studies of EC Dublin. She is currently finishing his Cambridge International Certificate in Educational Leadership and has just started to undertake her MA in Professional Development in Language Education.
Sandra Pitronaci
Sandra Pitronaci is based in Sydney, Australia, where she is currently National Academic Director, ELICOS & Pathways, ILSC Education Group. She has worked in the education field for almost 20 years, initially as a high school teacher then as a university tutor. She later moved to English language teaching, tried her hand as a teacher trainer, and has spent the last 10 years in academic management.
Sandra is passionate about making a positive contribution to the ELT sector, is an avid supporter of ELT communities of practice, and has been an IATEFL and LAMSIG member for the past 5 years. She is Convenor of the English Australia NSW Academic Managers Special Interest Group, serves on the Editorial Team of the English Australia Journal as Classroom Talk Editor, and alongside Gerhard, is an admin of the 2,000+ member Australian-New Zealand #AusELT Facebook group.
While she has spent most of her time in Sydney and Melbourne, she has done various stints in Italy, Jordan and Vietnam, and she regularly presents at international conferences, including IATEFL and LAMSIG events. She is fascinated by chaos/complexity theory and envisaging organisations as complex dynamic systems, and she embraces a servant leadership approach to her work as an academic manager.
Sandra holds a Master of Applied Linguistics in TESOL, a Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education, a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, and an International Diploma in Language Teaching Management.