Miscellanea

Questions

Lorena Parretti writes: "How to cope with some frustration when you are the only one teacher trying to 'develop' learner autonomy in a group of 5?"

Sound familiar? Please send your reply to lcrpem@ust.hk (to be posted here), to auto-l, or directly to Lorena at: loriparr@virgilio.it

Job Vacancies

Kiwi Consultants is a small training and translation consultancy in Paris, France. We are looking to recruit one or two people to work in a language learning resource center in the Paris area....

Our training company is involved in a couple of largish contracts with public utilities in the Paris area. We will soon be replying to a tender for LL resource center work for the period 2004-2006. Were we to be successful - and on the basis of our track record we have a good chance - there would be openings, part-time or possibly full-time, for suitably qualified people.

The profile:

--man or woman probably in the 25-45 age bracket who has practical experience and theoretical knowledge of autonomy approaches in the language learning field, who has a university degree, who preferably speaks at least one foreign language (French, German, Spanish or Italian would be the first choices), who is willing to learn French if s/he doesn't already know it, who has experience in language learning set-ups and who is genuinely comfortable with an autonomy approach. To add on a bit of jargon, the person would need to be a self-starter, i.e. polyvalent in terms of what they do, unfazed by practical problems (photocopy machine has jammed, electronic badges don't work), lively and motivated, with excellent people skills. We want someone who has high energy levels and who will be proactive about suggesting ways in which we can enrich and improve the service we offer. The person needs to hold a European passport.

They also need to be conversant with basic business software - Word, Excel, Lotus Notes etc - and to become conversant with some of the multimedia software we use - Tell me More, Ellis, Reflex etc. The position would involve manning one or more resource centers - welcoming learners, making bookings, doing spontaneous speaking sessions, supplying statistics to me - but also conducting 1-on-1 learner interviews to help learners set goals and plan their learning. There would probably also be some more traditional stand-up small group sessions on different themes ("How to Sound Convincing", "Bridget Jones' Diary" and "Responding to Advertising" are three sessions we have done this last month...)

What we have in mind is that the person(s) would come here for a week in the Sept-Nov 2003 period so that they can see at first hand what we are doing... Then, assuming all goes well and the contract is confirmed for us, we would make the person an offer for an initial 9-month period starting February or March 2004.

Anyone interested can contact Dan Cotterall-Debay by email at Kiwi Consultants: dan@kiwiconsultants.com