The Person
Rozitah Abu Samah is a teaching professional, consultant, assessor, and public speaker specialising in teacher training, educational technologies and learner linguistic development. A coffee addict, an avid iphoneographer, and an occasional sketcher, Rozitah has travelled extensively in Asia, Europe and the Americas. She has keynoted conferences, led workshops, and spoken to different audiences from the far reaches of Morocco to rich historical Russia. Rozitah has a deep-seated interest in sociolinguistics where her own research on raising trilingual children has influenced her approach in pedagogy in the wake of current social contexts. Rozitah holds a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from the University of Leicester and a Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA) from Cambridge. Rozitah has also studied Theory and Practice in Language Testing at the University of Roehampton in London. She has worked as an IELTS examiner and has also been an online moderator for teacher training courses with the British Council.
Roles
The Teacher
Rozitah has over 30 years of professional experience in ELT and teacher training. She started off her teaching career at Coleman College in Singapore where she spent six years getting to know the multilingual classroom with students from various parts of South-East Asia. During this time, she also attained her TESL certification with the Royal Society of Arts in the UK. She then took up a teaching position in Chittagong, Bangladesh where she got to know and love the country.
The Teacher Trainer
As an experienced presenter, Rozitah has spoken at various teacher training conferences in Morocco with the British Council. She has collaborated and led workshops with the Moroccan Association of Teachers of English (MATE) co-operating with local teachers on issues of interest. In her capacity as ICT Co-ordinator, she has helped Moroccan educators shape engaging lessons with their learners while utilising technology in an environment with limited resources. When not travelling on teacher training projects, Rozitah managed Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) courses at the teaching centre as well as facilitated in-house professional development workshops with her colleagues.
The Assessor
Rozitah's work continued in Moscow where she not only trained new British teachers teaching in Russia, but was also actively involved in Cambridge ESOL and IELTS assessment. Her regular participation ingroup standardisation sessions with examiner colleagues ensured that her testing skills remain at the highest standard and align with the assessment framework as determined by the British Council, IDP Australia as well as Cambridge Assessment bodies. As a certified assessor, Rozitah has led test preparation workshops across different continents, namely Africa, Europe and Asia.
The Course Designer
Her position as Business Co-ordinator has further elevated her responsibilities to include securing corporate training contracts in Moscow. This entailed frequent customisation of courses and lesson outcomes to fit the needs of various businesses, institutions and establishments and at the heart of it all, the learners. At the end of her teaching contract in Russia, Rozitah moved on to Syria where she took the opportunity to share her knowledge and experience with local teachers and students alike.
As lecturer, Rozitah was involved in adapting schemes of work which are continuous work in progress documents that involve meeting the needs of students emerging from a rolling registration system in the school. The frequent enrolment of new students and the large disparity of language abilities in the classroom meant that she had to improvise lesson resources and was involved in the decision-making process of amending test items in the monthly summative assessment at each level.
The ICT Co-ordinator
The widespread use of technology has necessitated the digitisation of not just processes but also how lessons are delivered in today's world. Throughout her role as ICT Co-ordinator, Rozitah has converted the most tenacious technophobe to avid technophiles through seminars, workshops and ICT clinics. She has created lesson plans for local teachers and explored ways to exploit minimal resources when integrating technology in the classroom.
The Learner
Rozitah is a regular participant of conferences and professional development events that involve discussions of recent investigations and innovations in ELT research.
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Reflections and Thoughts on Pedagogy
“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” Aristotle
My work is founded on the principle of empowering those who feel that they do not have the ability to empower themselves.
At an early age, I came to realise that education has always been my chosen career path, having come from a family of relatives who are also educators.
I am at my best when I am in the classroom and sharing an experience as simple as laughter with the people around me. In my faculty and professional roles, I regard supporting, guiding and managing the next generation of potential thought, practice and change leaders to be an absolute honour. Contributing to the profession I care about is one of the driving factors behind what I do. By training teachers and providing insight into teaching ideologies and applications, I believe that my work has the ability to create a positive impact not only on learners in tertiary education, but also reaching those far beyond those with whom I have direct interaction.
My teaching is grounded on the beliefs and principles of learner development. Recently, much focus has been placed on not just the academic performance of students, but also on the all-rounded education of the learner. I apply this philosophy to my teaching. My principal objective in any teaching venture is to help learners discover research and knowledge and assimilate these into their own learning perspectives. Teaching requires that a student reach their objectives without experiencing language as a barrier to their learning.
To harness this process, it is imperative to consider the modern learner's context in an increasingly bilingual or multilingual environment. For this reason, my work has been closely shaped not just by Translanguaging in Bilingual Education as modelled by Cen Williams in the Welsh classroom context but also by published research from other leading experts in ELT and Linguistics, including Dr Ofelia Garcia as well as Professor Li Wei . I believe that learning should not be confined or limited to monolingual settings. Instead, students should be able to capitalise on their cognitive resources as much as they possibly can, to reach their learning potential.
This meta-cognitive learner development demands that I give adequate attention to my own methodology, techniques and even prejudices towards how I perceive the learning process. It also calls for a need for me to acknowledge that every student does not acquire information in the same way and possesses distinctive learning skills and abilities. For this reason, my decisions should be sensitive to the differences of each learner. I try to align my teaching approach to diverse learning styles and use an array of resources, activities, and skills focus.
I take pride in my craft and aim to challenge the traditional concept of teacher-as-presenter in the classroom. Wherever possible, I incorporate various roles in my teaching styles, that of facilitator, conductor, mentor, lecturer, director, confidante, and most importantly, friend.
Education is much like one’s journey through life, you learn as you go along. And in this regard, I am a learner as I am a teacher.
Modules PREVIOUSLY Taught