BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
for Marisa Constantinides

Dip.RSA, M.A. App Ling
Director of CELT Athens

CURRENT POSITION   I run CELT Athens, a Teacher Development centre based in the capital of Greece, and am Course Supervisor for all courses, including the DELTA Cambridge/RSA Diploma,  the Institute of Linguists Diploma in Translation and off-site seminars and workshops on a variety of topics for which I am responsible.

BACKGROUND   I started out to be a musician and studied classical singing but at some point, like many of us, 'fell  into' teaching. I have attended numerous workshops and teacher development courses but my main qualifications are  the  RSA Diploma in TEFLA (DTEFLA) and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Reading in the UK.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE   I first worked as a teacher of young learners for a year at the schools of Mr.Minos Androulakis and Mrs.Sevasti Magirou and then, for the next four years,  worked at the Hellenic American Union. During that time, I taught adults at various levels, then became Curriculum Coordinator for the advanced cycle of studies. At the V.Pagoulatou-Vlachou centre, where I  was next employed as Teacher Trainer and Materials Developement Co-ordinator, I also  taught FCE and Proficiency levels and wrote materials for those as well as for the other levels in this outfit. My teaching experience includes teaching ESP courses extensively, at the HAU, as a free lance teacher and, later, as part of the CELT team, handling diverse contracts such as The Bank of Greece, Roche Pharmaceuticals and the Andreas Syngros Academy of pre-primary Education.  

TEACHER TRAINING EXPERIENCE  My involvement in Teacher Development Programmes started at the Hellenic American Union where I ran workshops for my colleagues as well as for State School Teachers in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. In 1981 I began my first collaboration with Longman Publications and ran numerous training seminars for them all over Greece.

My next major Teacher Training involvement started in 1982, when I started work for Mrs.Gina Pagoulatou-Vlachou as a full time teacher trainer responsible for a staff initially of 40, and by the time I left this institution, 80 teachers. During that time I was also responsible for developing and coordinating materials  development for all levels of instruction. This collaboration ended in 1989 when CELT was founded.

In 1984, I was involved in the setting up of ETC, albeit briefly, but left this training outfit upon completion of my post-graduate degree.

As a free-lance teacher trainer, I  was the first to design, co-ordinate and run a series of Summer Teacher Training Courses for the PALSO Federation. The first course was mounted on the island of Crete in 1986 and was attended by more than 40 foreign language school owners and their teachers, other courses following in Kalamata, Kammena Vourla, and finally, for three years in Athens.

From 1989-1993  I ran CELT with partners, training teachers and teaching adults on general and ESP courses,  and as of September 1993, have been running CELT Athens on my own, mostly training teachers of English and supporting Diploma in Translation candidates.

PUBLICATIONS  I have written materials for children (Basic Grammar Workbooks 1, 2, & 3 ), activity books for Cambridge Exams set texts, and numerous articles on Language, Foreign Language Teaching and Education.

INTERESTS   My hobbies include writing songs/music and painting watercolours (you can see one of Hydra island here, and one more of the island of Serifos  here) but my main interest always remains teaching and helping teachers (experienced and new) reach their full potential.