APAC Community
Meet the team behind APAC...
USOA SOL
President
Usoa is a secondary school English teacher at Sant Gregori School in Barcelona and associate professor at Blanquerna. She graduated in Translation and Interpreting from UPF in 2003 and she got her Diploma in English Teaching (DELTA) from International House Barcelona in 2008. She is particularly interested in the psychology of teenagers and believes in the use of ICT to motivate students and to help them in their learning. She's a keen wiki user and winner of the John McDowell-British Council award in 2013. She's also a teacher trainer, and a materials writer.
VANESSA GÓNGORA
Secretary
Vanessa is an English Language Teacher with over 8 years of professional teaching experience. She graduated in Translation and Interpreting from UAB in 2006 and earned her first MA in Audiovisual Translation in 2007. Then, she got her CELTA Certificate back in London in 2010 and obtained her MA in ELT from UPF in 2014. She is currently working towards her Diploma in English Teaching (DELTA). Vanessa has worked in language schools and universities in the UK (King’s College London, the University of Manchester, Saint Giles International), Saudi Arabia (Hertfordshire Vocational Excellence Colleges and the British Council) and Japan (Kanda University of International Studies). She's specialised in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and since she is back in Barcelona, she has taught English language at UOC (Centre d’Idiomes Moderns) and is now teaching adults at EOIs.
ÀNGELS OLIVA
Treasurer
Àngels works as a senior learning designer at QAHE, London, working with teachers to develop new materials and making learning more interactive and engaging for Business and Computing students from all over the world. Before that, she has worked as an EAP teacher at QAHE, coordinated the Master’s course for Secondary School and EOI teachers of English at UPF/UOC and taught CLIL and general and professional ESP courses at UPF and URL. She started her teaching career as a CLIL teacher of Arts subjects, designing materials and working in collaboration with content teachers in Secondary Education. Besides her interest in instructional design and learning theories, Angels enjoys reading, walking about and pottering with an excessive (to some) amount of plants.
Esther Martin
Esther has been an ESL teacher for over 20 years. She graduated from Translation and Interpreting in 1999 and obtained her MA in English Language Teaching (ELT) from UPF in 2000. Esther has worked in various language schools where she developed and implemented teaching materials tailored to students' needs and proficiency levels. She is currently employed at Mon Lingua, a language school in Cardedeu, and continues to seek opportunities to inspire and educate her students. Esther has been a member of the APAC board since 2002.
JANINE KNIGHT
Contributor
Janine has been working in the field of ELT for over 25 years, first as Deputy head of an ESOL and literacy department in a further education college in the UK; teaching and managing community classes and college-based classes. In Spain she has had experience as a teacher of after school classes, working alongside Primary school teachers to carry out projects in English and teaching English literature and language in ESO. Janine has been an English speaking and listening examiner for Trinity London for many years and carries out pre-service and in-service teacher training. She holds a Phd in e-learning applied to language learning and continues to write and publish about socially relevant research topics such as learner agency or practical development of plurilingual and intercultural competence in primary and university-based classrooms, Sustainable Consumption in ELT as well as developing Critical Digital Literacy skills for language(s) teachers. She is currently co-developing Task-based lesson plans related to Inclusion and Diversity issues for primary. She has been a member and supporter of APAC for many years, receiving the John Mc Dowell award in 2018 for her collaborative work with a primary school on Sustainable consumption.
JOAN CHIRIVELLA
Contributor
Joan works as the Head of Languages and as an English and CLIL teacher at Col·legi Madre Sacramento. He holds a double Bilingual Bachelor's Degree in Pre-Primary and Primary Education and a Minor in Language Acquisition and Teaching English as a Foreign Language from UIC Barcelona. He is at this point in time completing a Master's Degree in Applied Languages at UdL. Joan is also an associate professor and research collaborator at the UIC Barcelona School of Education. His main research interest lies within the field of SLA, in particular, CLIL along with ILCHE. Joan won the John McDowell Award 2021 edition.
RICARD GARCIA
Contributor
Ricard has been teaching English and ESL methodology for more than 30 years, and he loves it. He has taught in Secondary Education in Barcelona, and also ESL didactics at UB. He has also taught future secondary teachers both at UB and UPF about the use of ICT in ESL for 7 years. Finally, he has also worked as editor for the educational site edu365 of the Departament d’Educació for 14 years. He is currenty in charge of the Departament d’Educació’s teacher training center in Gavà Viladecans.