About Me and My Teaching Context

My name's Marta Tarantino and I live in a small town in Southern Italy where I've been teaching English to kids aged 10-13 for a number of years, after teaching children at primary school for fifteen years. 

When it comes to my attitude towards my job, I like thinking of me as a sort of forever newbie, always ready to get involved in some new professional development adventure. 

As a matter of fact, contemporary world requires our students to be critical and creative thinkers and good communicators, thus teachers mustn't simply transmit knowledge: they are expected to design learning experiences that let students successfully tackle new information. Collaborative learning and teaching, PBL and technology, for example, offer a variety of strategies and tools that, by supporting learner-centered teaching approaches, can help us and our students face 21Century learning challenges. Well, I've been trying to implement all of these approaches in my classes in the last few years. My students have also been involved in a couple of eTwinning projects. These have proved to be precious opportunities for them to explore topics collaboratively with peers from other European Countries.