CELTA Course Trainers

All course trainers have undergone extensive preparation in order to qualify as CELTA tutors and are approved by Cambridge ESOL.

Simon Leclerc

Simon Leclerc has been involved in the education field, both research and training, since 1997. His initial work experiences with education were through research projects at Wilfrid Laurier University where he conducted counseling groups for high-risk students. This led to his work in researching the influences of residential mobility on academic success and socialization.

After some travel around Canada, Simon completed his CELTA certification at LSC Toronto in 2000 where he took on ESL teaching duties at LSC until 2003. At that point, he decided to pursue a Bachelor of Education for K-grade 6 and spent some time in the public sector. Having added to his experience, Simon came back to ESL instruction at LSC and also developed curriculum. Two projects of note were a young learners summer program for ages 5 to 16 (for those from disadvantaged regions of Mexico) and redevelopment of a teacher training course for non-native speakers and TKT preparation.

Looking for new challenges, Simon moved to London, England to complete his DELTA in 2007 at Oxford House College. He also continued to further his teaching experience by focusing on IELTS and Cambridge test preparation courses, as well as working as an IELTS examiner. Upon returning to Canada, he was hired as the CELTA Administrator for LSC Toronto and trained up as a CELTA course tutor and then a CELTA course assessor. He really enjoys watching the transformation that CELTA trainees go through over the month of the course. Simon views the CELTA as a perfect marriage of his educational research findings and practical classroom application.

In his free time, Simon enjoys going to concerts, collecting music, playing tennis, jogging, traveling and meeting up at the pub for conversation and a pint.

Patrick Huang

Patrick’s career in ESL is fast approaching 10 years. He has always been interested in languages and linguistics, even as he studied sciences, modern languages (BA, University of Toronto) and music (MMus, Royal Academy of Music, London). Since he finished his CELTA course at LSC Toronto, Patrick has taught a wide range of classes, including 1-to-1, TOEFL, IELTS, Cambridge CAE, business and general English classes. Besides teaching, Patrick has also been an examiner for IELTS, as well as FCE and CAE oral examinations.

He also enjoys leading professional development workshops and seminars. Beyond the qualification itself, the CELTA course also gave Patrick a goal and ambition – to become a CELTA trainer. To fulfill that goal, he completed the DELTA at International House, London, and received his CELTA tutor training back at LSC Toronto after that. He has been a CELTA trainer since 2007. With Toronto as his home base, Patrick has taught and trained in the UK and the United Arab Emirates.

Among the most enjoyable aspects of his job is the chance to meet people from very diverse backgrounds. Being able to give them skills that will help them in their ESL career is also very gratifying, especially when they make significant and tangible progress in a short period of time. In his spare time Patrick continues to pursue performing opportunities as a classically trained tenor.

He also has a passion for travel, and will continue to teach and train in different countries to widen his perspective on ESL teaching and teacher training. When the mood strikes, Patrick can cook up a few tasty dishes, either for a few friends, or for himself. He trusts his regular gym training will counter any undesirable effect of such indulgences (which are probably less occasional than he wants to believe)

Tania Iveson

Tania has been teaching English for almost 20 years. After graduating from The University of Western Ontario, she looked beyond the Canadian borders for her next adventure and discovered TEFL in Taiwan. Since then, Tania has completed her own CELTA course and taught in England, Spain, Canada and Brazil.
In 1996 Tania completed the extensive DELTA course at International House in Hastings, England. In 1998, after working as Assistant Director of Studies at EF in London, Tania fulfilled a career long ambition to become a CELTA trainer.
She has taught general, business and academic English to multi and mono lingual groups and individuals of all ages (from 5 to 65); prepared students for their IELTS and Cambridge PET, FCE, CAE and CPE exams, and for many years was both an IELTS and a Cambridge FCE examiner. One of her career highlights was writing the abridged novel, Call of the Wild, by Jack London, for the Penguin EFL Readers series.

Tania came back to Toronto in 2000 to take up the position of permanent CELTA trainer and Assistant Head of the Department at LSC Toronto. This led to taking a lead role in curriculum development and the creation of a standardized professional development system across the three LSC schools. Tania left the position of Head of Teacher Training at LSC in 2008 to pursue her other interests.
Since then, she has traveled extensively, giving workshops and presentations across Canada and the USA, and most recently creating teacher training manuals and giving a 3-day intensive training program to teachers and trainers in Burma.
Tania loves being a teacher trainer and sees helping trainees along their path of development as a genuine joy and privilege.

In her free time she enjoys playing Scattegories with her kids and husband, reading as much as possible, watching her younger son play soccer and her older one play guitar, and, when given the chance, flying back to the UK to catch up with friends and take long hikes in the Lake District.

Gerald Bagge

Gerald Bagge was born in Switzerland to British parents and found himself immersed in multicultural environments from an early age, courtesy of two boarding schools in the UK. He was awarded a Business College Diploma in Zurich in 1986. This was followed by a series of unsatisfying office and sales jobs. From the moment he started his teaching career in 1989 he never looked back! “My then equivalent of the CELTA was the best learning experience I’d ever had.” After gaining experience in Switzerland and the UK, he went on to complete the Cambridge Diploma in 1993.

Gerald has been a teacher trainer since 1994 and is proud to have been one of the first full-time tutors employed at Language Studies Canada, starting shortly after the training centre was established in 1996. In pursuit of a life-long ambition to see the world, he left salaried employment in 2001 to become a freelance teacher trainer, but has spent part of every year at LSC since that time. He relocated to Australasia in 2001. Gerald dedicates his career to constant review and assessment of what constitutes effective teaching and successful leaning environments. He enjoys helping teachers develop their own individual skills and awareness and loves not just English, but languages in general. He speaks fluent German, passable French and a smattering of Italian.

Outside of the classroom, Gerald combines his passion for travel, history and culture with extended bicycle trips – his current project is a pilgrim route from Ireland to Turkey. ‘It took the monks a lifetime to get there, and I’m not exactly making rapid progress either!’ When in Toronto, he can often be found combining coffee consumption with reading. He’s a regular at the Bloor Cinema, the Phoenix, the Opera House and Lee’s Palace, discovering the latest Indie acts and movies.

Ronalda Puritch

Ronalda has been involved with TESL for over 16 years. She began with a TESL course from CCLCS where she met her husband, Randy. Since then, they have travelled to a variety of countries to teach English: Mexico, Poland, UK, and Syria. Around 1996, Ronalda decided teaching was more than just a way to travel around and decided to get more training by taking the CTEFLA at LSC. It was quite an awareness raising experience especially after a few years of teaching. Since then she’s only looked forward to better opportunities in the field. She continued to improve her skills by taking the DTEFLA with International House in Krakow in 1998 and CELTA tutor training in Vancouver in 2002.

Ronalda and her husband set up the part time CELTA program at LSI and ran it from 2002-2006. During this time she also worked from time to time at LSC doing full time courses. She was a full time teacher and CELTA trainer at LSC from 2006-2007. She briefly held the position of DOS at LSI before moving on to open her own training service. Besides running her own business, she finds time to do CELTA courses at LSC, work for Centennial College as an instructor and Conestoga College as an IELTS examiner. She has experience teaching all levels of English as well as business English, Cambridge exam classes and IELTS classes.

In her free time Ronalda enjoys spending time with her 4 year daughter and husband.

Education:
HBA in Political Science for U of Western Ontario
TESL Certificate from CCLCS, Toronto
CTEFLA from LSC, Toronto
DTEFLA from IH, Krakow
IELTS examiner training from Conestoga College
CELTA tutor training from YMCA, Vancouver
TESL Ontario Certification

Mary Dolan

Mary Dolan has been working in the field of ESL since 1997. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science at the University of Toronto in 1996, Mary moved to Vancouver, where she did an initial qualification in teaching ESL. In 1998, she returned to Toronto and began working at Language Studies International. She started with General English, but was soon teaching exam courses, Business English and Academic English, along with developing curriculum, and being responsible for student placement. In 2001, Mary began studying for her DELTA, choosing the distance program, and finished in 2003.

Shortly after that, Mary trained to become a CELTA course tutor and started teaching a few courses a year, in conjunction teaching ESL classes. In 2006, she decided to leave Toronto again and work as a freelance CELTA course tutor. She worked on courses in Canada, the USA, Spain, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Japan before returning to her hometown of Ottawa to pursue a Bachelor of Education in 2008.

Since then, Mary has been based in Ottawa, where she is a substitute teacher for the OCDSB. She works for over a dozen different schools, teaching all subjects to students from kindergarten to grade 8. She specialises in teaching science, ESL and working in Special Education. Mary is hoping to find full-time employment with the board, but enjoys spending her summers in the company of adults studying for their CELTA.

In her free time, Mary bakes and cooks, a lot. She also enjoys riding her bicycle, swinging kettle bells and photography. Oh, and she’ll never say no to a pint at the pub.