Meet Your Prospective Mentor: Ella Maksakova!

 Meet your mentor who is happy and ready to help you become a teacher-researcher!

Hello fellow teachers! 

My name is Ella Maksakova and I am here to be your guide to the unknown and for now may be little comprehensible world of research. I remember my feelings about the research before joining the project, I literally felt an alien what came to understanding statistics in tables, could hardly distinguish one tool for data collection and analysis from another, was puzzled by seemingly endless literature reviews and generally found myself lost somewhere by the middle of a research article. However, I didn’t want to give up, I wanted to be rescued! I was desperate for someone to help me through! I needed a good adviser, a mentor and I was lucky to find such one within NETRUZ project that aims exactly at assisting language teachers interested in classroom-based research, but not knowing where to start.

If you are that kind of teacher, who feels strongly interested in and at the same time a bit intimidated by research per se, then NETRUZ is the right place for you to start the journey. Besides, you are not going to be alone, I will be happy to be your mentor along the path until we reach our final destination! Shall we set off???

Here is some information about me, so you we do not feel total strangers😊:

NETRUZ project, mentorship training (April-June 2021);

Active member of a global Mentoring community for teacher-researchers (TR2021);

Professional development course on TEAP (2020), Reading University, UK;

MA in TESOL, Webster University Tashkent (2020);

BA in English philology (2001), Tashkent State Pedagogical University,

Successfully cooperating with:

Moscow State University of International Relationship, (Tashkent campus) Senior EFL teacher;

Webster University (Tashkent campus) adjunct professor at MA TESOL program;

British Management University, EAP lecturer.

My research interests include: EAP/ESP, classroom-based research, teacher identity, Learning through play for very young and young language learners, ELT methodology, creativity in the classroom.

And… I am currently applying to obtain MA in Education and Innovation to make my lessons more effective through creative pedagogy based on research-informed decisions. Willing to participate in national educational reform projects as an ESL consultant. I am a part of a global mentors’ program initiated by Richard Smith to assist teacher-researchers to become better mentors for other teachers interested in classroom-based research.