The Team
plenary speakers
Russell Stannard is a multi-award-winning Educational Technologist and founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com.
He specializes in training language educators in the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. He often works as a consultant on the development of language learning technologies as well as presenting and providing teacher training.
He has delivered talks in more than 55 countries. He also runs several popular courses with the NILE. Before working in educational technology, Russell was the DOS of IH in Seville. He has worked on a number of books for different publishers.
More recently he has worked on creating educational video content and applications for organizations such as Kings College University, National Geographic and Ardmore.
Russell specializes in the use of Camtasia, SnagIT, Google products and virtual learning environments like Moodle, Zoom, MS Teams.
Studied psychology at Univerzita Komenského and Hunter College CUNY, with continuing education courses completed at J. F. Kennedy University, California.
She has been working for CEEV Živica for over 15 years, mostly focusing on teaching pupils and students, creating lesson plans on global education and soft skills and training teachers and university professors in innovative methods of teaching.
She is a validated British Council teacher of critical thinking. She focuses mostly on experiential teaching and where appropriate, incorporating art and psychology into teaching. Her psychology background gives her a theoretical understaning of the process, while standing in front of the classroom and training teachers for many years gave her experience and practice.
She believes teaching- learning is an act of mutual growth and is not solely a matter of brain but a holistic dance of intellect, personality development and interpersonal skills.
Christina Gkonou is Associate Professor at the University of Essex, UK, where she leads the MA TESOL programme and teaches across a range of modules in language teacher education and the psychology of language learning and teaching.
Her research focuses on the affective dimensions of language education, particularly language learner anxiety and language teacher emotions, and she has published widely in her field.
Christina has examined over 30 doctoral theses internationally and has served as External Examiner for MA TESOL and MA Applied Linguistics programmes at the Universities of Birmingham, Kent, and Leeds.
She currently oversees the entire provision for the Faculty of Language Studies across all seven branches of the Arab Open University in her role as Chief External Examiner.
Additionally, she is co-editor of the Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching book series published by Multilingual Matters.
Piotr Steinbrich is a lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, where he teaches EFL courses and conducts pre-service teacher training.
He has been involved in teacher training and development for over 25 years, participating in numerous ELT conferences, seminars, and workshops across most European countries, as well as in South America, the Middle East, and Asia.
Piotr is the author, co-author, or consultant for numerous ELT materials published by leading TEFL publishers.
