Michelle Ives

Start date at XJTLU: November 2007

This is Michelle’s second visit to China having lived and worked here two years ago, one year in Zhuhai, Guangdong and one year here in Suzhou at a private language school. According to her, Suzhou is one of the most beautiful cities in China and a very comfortable place for foreigners to live in, so she is happy to find herself back here. She spent her intervening years in Bali, Indonesia preparing post-graduate scholarship students to take the IELTS exam and study in Australia and Canada. She has been teaching for more than ten years, initially in a medicine-related field (podiatry) and the last 5 years in English-language teaching..

As well as an interest in language (learning and teaching), she is keen on medicine, having studied Forensic Science and graduating with a Masters in Public Health. It was the constant exposure to the communication problems faced by immigrants studying medicine that lead to her interest in ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching. Her area of interest within education is encouraging independent learning and utilizing learning styles, which is the topic of one of her published articles. She particularly enjoys preparing students to study overseas; to meet the challenges and reap the rewards this opportunity brings.