Hello, I'm Michelle Worgan
Over the last 20+ years, I’ve developed a passion for young learner teaching, in particular primary and pre-primary. This is where I’ve focused my attention as a materials writer, and I’ve contributed to several major international courses. As an educator, I’ve always enjoyed trying out different approaches in my classroom. I wanted to discover what works for my students and find new ways to really engage them. And over the last couple of years I’ve been thinking hard about the way we teach children. Is it suitable for all our learners? What other options are there? Could we do things differently?
I’ve come up with lots of questions. Why do we insist on so much reading and writing practice in primary education? Why do so many teachers prefer activities to take place in lockstep? Why are learners sitting down at desks all day? What future are we preparing our learners for?
I have an idea of the answers to some of these questions and they don’t inspire me with confidence. Because they benefit the teacher, not the learner.
I think things need to change. If you’re here, you probably do, too. And I want to help you make those changes. I want to help you be the best teacher you can be for your students, without sacrificing all your free time!
Over on the blog section, you’ll read about my preferred approaches in the form of blog posts and articles. I recently launched a professional development course for young learner teachers, and I’m in the process of deveoping classroom resources which will become available in the coming months.
I’m really excited about the launch of this new venture, and I hope you’ll accompany me along this journey.
Michelle
My work
Publications & Projects
I have written Student Books, Activity Books and Teacher’s Books as well as digital and supplementary components for a variety of primary courses. I work with Macmillan Education, Pearson, ELI, and Hubbub Labs, among others.
I first worked with Michelle when she was working on Global Stage and I was her development editor. We later wrote components for the same pre-primary course. Michelle was great to work with from the very beginning. She produced very complete and accomplished first drafts and she took on feedback and suggestions willingly. Michelle brings creativity and ideas to every project and I would recommend her for both materials development and training. Her very recent classroom experience means she knows what works with young learners and can create materials that pass on her years of teaching expertise. I think any ELT teacher would benefit from Michelle’s ideas and resources.
Teacher Development
I offer teacher training talks and workshops at local, national and international conferences, both face-to-face and online. Some of the topics I’ve spoken about are:
- Inclusive Approaches
- Teaching writing skills
- Designing digital adventures
- Mindfulness & movement
- Discussion tasks for primary
- Thinking routines
(and if you’ve got sharp eyes, no I wasn’t drinking wine during my talk – the bottle has a secret message inside!)
I’ve worked with Michelle for several years. She is extremely versatile and has helped us on a variety of projects including lesson resources, blogs, newsletters and editing. Michelle is an absolute pleasure to work with. She responds quickly to emails, always takes on new projects with an open mind and a positive attitude and consistently provides creative, fun and clearly written resources for our clients. I would recommend Michelle’s services to any publisher or ELT business that needs a friendly communicative freelancer that produces high quality educational materials
Podcast appearances
