Hello,
Welcome to A Journey in TEFL — a space I created for English teachers.
I’ve been teaching English for over 30 years, and what I’ve learned is that this job is never really finished. There is always a new student to understand, a new approach to try, a new challenge to navigate. And that’s exactly what I love about it.
This Substack is my way of sharing that journey.
What you’ll find here
Ideas, reflections and resources for English language teachers, including:
- Practical classroom ideas you can actually use
- Thoughts on methodology, materials and what really works
- Honest conversations about teacher wellbeing and sustainability
- Inspiration for those days when the energy is running low
- A reminder that you are doing better than you think
Who this is for
Whether you’re a brand new teacher or an experienced educator looking for fresh thinking and a sense of community, you’re in the right place. TEFL takes us to different classrooms, different countries, different stages of life. But we’re all on the same journey.
Why I write
Because teaching can be an isolating profession. We close the classroom door and get on with it. But behind every teacher is a whole world of doubt, curiosity, growth and passion — and I believe we should talk about that more.
I write because I want teachers to feel seen, supported and inspired. And because this journey is simply better when we share it.
THE JOURNEY
A few milestones along the way.
| 2009 | The blog begins
Attended a digital storytelling course. Started A Journey in TEFL — and discovered a global community of educators online. |
| 2012 | IATEFL and TESOL France
Spoke at IATEFL — one of the world’s largest ELT conferences — and TESOL France connecting with teachers and researchers from around the world. |
| 2015+ | Dream2Edu founded
Launched a creative writing and reading workshop business for young learners, bringing the same creative energy to after-school settings. |
| 2023 | Substack launches
Started the A Journey in TEFL newsletter on Substack — a new home for reflections, experiments, and ideas beyond the blog. |
| 2026 | TESOL Spain & the AI frontier
Speaking at TESOL Spain. Actively experimenting with Claude, ChatGPT, and AI tools in the EFL classroom — and writing about every step. |
Let’s bring something useful to your teachers.
If you’d like to discuss a workshop, talk, or tool review, I’d love to hear from you.
| 🎤
Conference Talks Presentations at ELT conferences on AI, creativity, and classroom technology. |
🛠
Teacher Workshops Hands-on professional development sessions for school and university EFL departments. |
| 🔍
Tool Reviews Honest reviews of ELT tools, apps, and platforms that are relevant to my community. |
✏️
Creative Writing Workshops for Teenagers Creative writing and reading workshops for Teenagers, in Istanbul and online. |
Want to follow the journey?
Subscribe to my blog and newsletter for ideas, experiments, and honest reflections on EFL teaching in the age of AI.
ajourneyintefl.substack.com · evasimkesyan.com/contact
Hello…
I`m also an EFL teacher looking forward to meeting colleagues around the world and share new ideas and common interests.
Best wishes,
Julia Kalaputi
Macedonia
Hi Julia,
Thanks for visiting my blog. It’s nice to know that people are reading my posts. I’ll do my best to improve my blog.I believe we all have many things to learn from each other. I hope you’ll come back.
Dear Eva,
I was one of the attendants in your workshop on Wednesday. You were wonderful. Thank you for all that invaluable information you shared with us. I really enjoyed and benefited so much. I wish you even more success in the following course of your career.
Cheers,
Erdem Yildirim
Thank you very much.You’re very kind.
Hi there! I dropped over here from Janet B.’s blog. We have a lot in common — about everything on your Glogster thingy (cool) applies to me, except my two kids aren’t twins. I have been teaching English for 20 years, though!
I’m not new to blogging but am just starting my teaching blog. It’s not easy with so much wonderful stuff already out there.
I signed up for the Images TESOL course like Janet, but maybe we’ll run into each other on the Web in the future.
great you like literature too eva, I try to contextualise ELT in a wider cultural context and write quite a bit about different writers, have written about Joyce,Lawrence and Ibsen so far http://markandrews.edublogs.org/
all the best
Mark
Dear Eva,
I discovered your blog through blogathon. I really liked your blog and become more interested in your use of technology. My institution (Cankaya University, Ankara) is organizing a symposium on e-learning practices in secondary education and I wonder if you’d like to share your e-experiences in the symposium. If you are interested and available on 16th of April, could you please contact me. Thanx.
http://digiprep11.cankaya.edu.tr
Hi Eva,
I found you on the aroundtheworldwith80schools network. My classes in Australia would have loved to have skyped you but the time difference is no good.
I’m looking for classes in different cultures which my students can talk to as part of celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8th. Would you have girls in Years 7 – 10 who would be interested in this kind of discussion? I’d like them to talk about the lives of girls/women around the world. Maybe we could use some sort of chat/email forum seeing as skype will not be an option?
Regards,
Jenny
Hi Eva! It’s been great to meet you through the ESL Educators blog carnival. Looking forward to further collaboration!
Hello Eva
I am an EFL teacher in Mexico and I have subscribed to your blog since the first teacher challenge. You have so much to share that I added you to my feed-reader.
As an EFL teacher in a public university, I manage two active blogs, one for my professional development classes http://teachingknowledge.wordpress.com and one for an Academic Writing class I teach to advanced level students. http://writingcu.wordpress.com.
I am currently looking for mentors to read my writing class students’ blogs. It is the first time all of my students are blogging and they are thrilled. Everytime they see the cluster map grow new red dots they start proofreading with more detail.
Would you be able to direct me in you PLN to any EFL teacher that would like to share commenting with his or her writing class at the university level with my students? I am looking for a writing circle for 22 students.
Dear Eva,
First of all I would like to congratulate you for maintaining a nice blog. I have a small suggestion for you. I saw links to various English learning websites in your blogroll but 1 link was missing. I think you have not seen an amazing website for learning English online which is http://www.englishleap.com . I would request you to list this website in your blogroll.
Hope you will keep my request.
Regards,
Mike
hello
I am an MA TEFL student from Iran.I am working on the advantages and disadvantages of using blog for development of academic writing skill.I would be pleased if you could mention your point of view about advantages and disadvantages of using blog.
with bestregard
Hi, I am an ELT formator and etymologist who works as a teacher of English at a private school. At regular intervals, I give conference to my colleagues over linguistics and methodology. My dearest teacher offered me about this website and I had a keen look at it and found it really beneficial. thanks a lot…
thanks Okan for the comment
Hi Eva, teacher from Poland just stole your idea on past cont song (ive chosen John Lennon), i’ve adapted it a bit, we’ll see how it goes…:)
I’m happy you liked it. Hope it works for your class too.
This is a gold mine! Thank you for sharing all these ideas and tricks here. I am in awe of your organisational skills as well. I will definitely visit your blog again!
Cheers,
Kelly
Thank you for your nice words Kelly
Sorry! Here is our website: https://languagecaster.com/