taylormadeenglish

Reach me

ABout Me

I am a DELTA qualified English as a foreign language teacher, teacher trainer and materials writer currently based in New York City, USA. I have taught English to adults and teenagers in Brazil, South Korea, Belgium and Costa Rica since 2007. I work as a freelance writer, trainer and project manager for a variety of clients in Brazil and the rest of the world.

My published materials include the Our Languages, a coursebook series for FTD Education in Brazil which was awarded the British Council ELTon Award for Excellence in Course Innovation in 2021, and Transfor.me Kids, which was ELTON nominated in 2022. I have written materials for Active English for a variety of schools in Brazil, and wrote a complete course for B2 adults for Seven Idiomas in São Paulo, Brazil. I have also proofread for various publishers including Macmillan and Cengage.

As the Project Manager of Active English, I have a variety of responsibilities including coordinating planning sessions for project development and execution, defining project objectives and scope, creating detailed schedule, project parameters, and budget expectations, and measuring project performance and progress throughout campaign execution.

In August 2018, I self-published my first ebook, entitled “How Was Your Weekend? 1001 Discussion Questions To Use With Your EFL/ESL Students” and I co-founded the Raise Up! Project, arguing that ELT needs to stop excluding a wide range of social groups in coursebooks and materials. In this project, so far we have published three coursebooks and have more planned in the next few years.

I am also a podcast producer, presenter and consultant, including the ELTON nominated TEFL Commute podcast, and IATEFL TDSIG’s Developod.

I am the current joint coordinator of IATEFL TDSIG (global) and leader of BRAZ-TESOL MaWSIG (Brazil). Other roles have included President and Co-Founder of BELTA, the Belgian English Language Teachers Association, Communications Director of BRAZ-TESOL, and Second-Vice President of BRAZ-TESOL Brasília (now Center-West Chapter)

In 2010, I started my blog, theteacherjames.com, on which I have continued to share lesson materials and opinion pieces. I am a very active member of the ELT community and regular present at conferences, both online and offline.