Adrian Tennant
Web Guide author
Often people ask how I got started in EFL. After graduating with a degree in History from university, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. While I waited for inspiration I had a number of temporary jobs – working in a motorbike factory, in a recording studio and as a ‘handyman’ in an office full of women! Then a friend told me he was going to move to France to start teaching and I thought, “Hey! That would be a great way to spend a couple of years while I decide on a job I’d like.” So, I took a TEFL Cert course and then started looking for jobs. My first teaching job was in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. I then taught in France for six months before moving to Budapest in Hungary, where I worked for six years.
It was during my time teaching in Hungary that I realised I’d found the job I liked – teaching. Even now, though I spend much of my time writing, I still have regular classes and still get a buzz from helping students learn. During my time in Hungary I was fortunate to do lots of teacher training, both pre- and in-service. I then moved to Ecuador where I was the ADOS at the British Council in Quito. By this time my daughter was six and we decided we’d move to the UK so that she could get a settled school life and not have to make new friends every two years.
I now live in Nottingham and divide my time between writing, teaching and running teacher-training courses and workshops around the world. I love travelling, and having the opportunity to work with teachers in lots of different countries is a joy. In just the last year I’ve been fortunate to work in Serbia, Pakistan, Croatia and Turkey.
As a writer I’ve worked on a wide range of courses for Macmillan. I’m the co-author of English Matters, a five level course for schools in Uzbekistan; American Inside Out video books and Synergy, a four-level course for Asia. I wrote the Level 2 Skyline grammar and writing books for Latin America as well as two workbooks (4 & 5) for Attitude and contributed to most of the resource packs. I contributed to four levels of Move, a short course, as well as writing many of the online activities for Inspiration, the secondary course. I also wrote the Elementary and Beginner workbooks for Straightforward, the latter with Lindsay Clandfield.
Oh! Before I forget, I write quite a lot for onestopenglish as well. Over recent years I’ve contributed materials on teaching with minimal resources, a series of CLIL lessons and tips, listening tasks to accompany the podcasts and a series of methodology articles on reading, speaking, writing, listening and vocabulary and I’m just about to start writing a new set on pronunciation.
Just in case I get bored I write a regular column for the IATEFL Voices newsletter. My old column was on web issues, but I’ve just started a new column where I play devil’s advocate as I examine various classroom and methodological issues. I am also the current chair of the IATEFL Membership Committee.
To relax, I like to play badminton and go swimming.