My name is Phil Longwell.  I live in the United Kingdom.  I am known online as ‘Teacher Phili’, which was a nickname that some children in a Tanzanian orphanage called me and it stuck!  It was my Twitter handle from 2009 to 2022, when I left before it sadly became ‘X’.  The bird was the word!! I have been an English language teacher since 2006, but have had a variety of roles in education since as outlined below.

My most recent role was as a study skills tutor in the Centre for Collaborative Learning at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston (2021-23). I have previously been employed by Adult Learning (Norfolk County Council) as a non-accredited tutor and trainer.  I was an ESOL tutor with Norfolk Community Learning Services for three years (2018-21).  For two consecutive summers (2020-21), I worked for the English Language Teaching Centre at the University of Sheffield, on their 10-week pre-sessional programme.  I was employed by INTO UEA (2017-20) on two consecutive pre-sessional courses and as an IELTS invigilator throughout the year.

Earlier in my language teaching career, I had several short-term contracts with Bell Educational Trust, including one that lead to two separate contracts at King Saud University in Riyadh (2010-11).  I have also worked at a hagwon in South Korea (2007-8), an arts university in Beijing (2009-10), at the Leys in Cambridge (2009-11) and Vietnam (2012).  For three years (2017-20), I was a committee member of the IATEFL Learning Technologies Special Interest Group, first as newsletter editor, then webmaster.  Finally, I carried out promotional work for Teacher Training Videos (2017-20) and ELT Training (2020-21).

This WordPress site is my space to write about my experiences in English Language Teaching, conferences, webinars, reflections, ELTchat summaries (2010-19) and a place to showcase some of the films that I have created.  It also acts as both my personal and public space and is linked to two YouTube channels.

Click on ‘News’ to view all my blog posts, with the most recent at the top, or click on ‘About‘ to read more about me and the tutoring services that I can offer you.

Phil

last updated: 31 August 2023