About Anna
A 30-year-old American ESL teacher, I’ve taught in the cockroach-infested island of Taiwan, the garbage-ridden borough of Brooklyn, and – for a change of pace – in the cleaner-than-American-hospitals island nation of Japan, where I currently reside. I carry a master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and have US K-12 public school certification and Cambridge ESOL Oral Examiner certification, as well as experience teaching English from emergent levels to advanced TOEFL prep, working with students from ages 5 to 50. I sincerely enjoy teaching ESL and am trying to develop my career by working in different aspects of the field, hoping to gain a university teaching post and pursue a doctoral degree in a field relating to second language acquisition.
Among my hobbies, I greatly enjoy language studies. My undergraduate degree was in Asian Languages and Literatures. I speak English and Chinese; the Japanese is coming along, and I’ve been weighing my options as to a 4th language. I enjoy travel, dining, sci-fi and fantasy-related books and movies, a large variety of things that fall into the arts and crafts category, and also computer games and board games. Any activity that implies adventure is appealing, such as hiking and rafting and the like; I’ve spent my share of time in hostels and jungles and at the sites of ancient ruins. Indiana Jones is my role model.
Interestingly enough, the original purpose of this site was never a blog – that was a side project. The main intent was to create a resource, specifically for language learners. Seven years later, there are quite a lot of such resources available online, and I was forced to admit in my recent revamp that such aspirations were likely antiquated. But perhaps it can still be a resource to people wishing to persue similar hobbies or traveling to a place I have experience in; my new goal is to create a site that can serve such a purpose. If you want to contact me, please leave a comment – due to high quantities of spam, it will need to wait for my authorization, but I’d love to hear from you.
Many thanks for reading, and good luck in your own aspirations!