I am an award-winning ELT Teacher, materials writer, teacher trainer and conference speaker based in BrasĂlia, Brazil. In 2021, my coursebook series Our Languages, published by FTD Educaçao, was awarded an ELTon Award for Excellence In Course Innovation.
Along with Ilá Coimbra, I run the Raise Up! Project, arguing that ELT needs to stop excluding a wide range of social groups in coursebooks and materials. In this project, so far we have published three coursebooks and have more planned in the next few years.
I am also a podcast consultant, including the ELTON nominated TEFL Commute podcast, IATEFL TDSIG’s Developod, and Seven Skills For The Future, and in August 2018, I self-published my first ebook, entitled “How Was Your Weekend? 1001 Discussion Questions To Use With Your EFL/ESL Students”.
I am Second-Vice President of BRAZ-TESOL and BRAZ-TESOL BrasĂlia, and a committee member of IATEFL TDSIG. a former President and a co-founder of BELTA, the Belgian English Language Teachers Association
In 2010, I started my blog, theteacherjames.com, on which I have continued to share lesson materials and opinion pieces. I am a very active member of the ELT community and regular present at conferences, both online and offline.
The Teacher James 
Great post! It does mean a lot to me! I love starting my classes with a quote. It helps student think and express themselves better. These two are great, they remind me of how important it is to listen to our intuition. Thanks 4 sharin!
Thanks Simone. I think you're onto something there with intuition, we should trust our instincts, based on our knowledge and experience, and sometimes we give too much weight to the beliefs of external influences.
Then you will love the epigraph to Widdowson's “Explorations in Applied Linguistics”
We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
T.S. Eliot Little Gidding
(remebered because I used it in epigraph to my thesis 🙂
You're right Elizabeth, I do love it! Never underestimate the power of the journey.