Exploring Romania: A Journey of Workshops, Culture and Connection

Having worked as the Assistant Director of Studies at St. Andrew’s College for over a year, I knew that there would be ample opportunities to travel to different places as part of the Academic Team. After missing out on a couple of chances to attend conventions due to various misfortunes, I was pleased when the prospect of traveling to Romania came up.

I had few expectations of what the experience would be like but was grateful to be asked to deliver teacher training workshops in five different cities, as part of a collaboration between St. Andrew’s and International Summer Schools Education.

In the lead-up to the trip, I tried to learn as much as possible about Romanian culture and what life is like for English teachers there. It is safe to say I learned considerably more about both topics during the trip than I did sitting in front of my computer in the office. It truly was an immersive cultural experience!

The plan was laid out for us by Claudiu, the owner and director of ISSEDU and, before long, I had arrived in the city of Iasi. The following day, we attended the RATE (Romanian Association of Teachers of English) conference and conducted our first workshops. There were some incredible speakers, and it was clear that the attendees cared deeply about their professional development. My workshop focused on how we can measure the success of a lesson and how we generally define success in EFL. I used this idea in the context of Task Based Learning, drawing on the experience I have with the methodology itself, and through the curriculum development process we uptake every year at St. Andrew’s.

After the RATE conference, I had my first taste of authentic Romanian food. If you ever get the chance to try sarmale, (followed by a shot of ?uic?), don’t turn it down! The following day was day one of CATE (Creative Approaches to Teaching English).

Over the next five days, my colleague Kieren and I travelled with Claudiu and his team in a minibus from city to city, delivering our workshops. This also included some very useful and insightful collaborations with British Council representatives. We travelled to Cluj, Timisoara, Deva, and Ploiesti, delivering three workshops at each stop.

I learned a lot about the challenges some English teachers in Romania face. However, more importantly, I witnessed the huge level of dedication they have for their students and student success. In each workshop, I facilitated a discussion between the participants about their own experiences of success in teaching. Their discussions aligned well with some of the ideas I wanted to share. We discussed the small signs of a successful lesson such as students not packing up in a rush to get to their next class when the bell rings, to larger, more practical measures of success such as student feedback and how to ask the most optimal questions. I hope they managed to take away something useful for their own reflective practices in the future.

The whole experience was incredibly rewarding and, above all, a great collaboration between two organizations passionate about summer schools and the overall student experience. The trip was capped off with an exploration of the city of Bucharest, the perfect way to end any Romanian experience.

Kieren and I would like to thank Claudiu, Cosmina, Gratziella, Alex and Silviu for the opportunity to take part in this experience and, most of all, for their incredible hospitality.

By Andrew McLeod, Assistant Director of Studies