Gaston Bacquet

Member since Nov 2020

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Details

Key area of interest

English

Keywords

CLIL, Social Studies, English Literature, Education, Language and Culture

My background

My name is Gaston Bacquet and although I am from Chile originally, I have lived abroad for more than one-third of my life (including the UK, Japan, the Middle East, the US and Southeast Asia). In addition to having been a teacher and researcher for almost 20 years, I am internationally certified yoga and meditation instructor, the principles of which I try to bring into my relationships with students, parents and colleagues. In my free time I love to read and travel, and my favorite part of being a teacher is first having the chance to help my students not only achieve their goals but mostly to LEARN things they bring into their own lives, and secondly the relationships I am able to create with everyone involved in the teaching community. Although a language teacher for most of my career, I also teach Social Studies, language-integrated school content and English Literature. I love exposing students to a variety of cultures, authors and resources while learning, and I am a big believer in self-motivation and autonomous learning, two things I always try to instill in my students.

Experience

I started teaching in Chile at the Montessori Elementary School, and later went to work at language centers for the next 9 years, teaching adults and secondary-age learners. I then began transitioning into higher education and worked at a few Chilean universities and in 2014 I joined the British Council, where I remained for 4.5 years working first in Saudi Arabia and later in Myanmar; while overseas I taught primary-age children, young adults and was involved in a variety of special projects to teach local members of parliament and government staff. In 2019 I moved to Japan to teach at a local high-school and in 2020 I returned to the US, where I taught remotely for Newcastle University until September this year.

Qualifications

I have an Advanced Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language from Trinity College London, a master's on the same subject from University College London and I am currently pursuing my PhD in Education at the University of Glasgow.