Giving is Caring

Always remember:

The value of time, the success of perseverance, the worth of character, the power of kindness, the influence of example, and the obligation of duty.



Friday 3 November 2017

First CTS ELT Academic Conference

Thanks to all those who helped with the organization and development of the First CTS ELT Academic Conference. It was a complete success!!!


Grammar Games for the English Classroom

Our last Grammar Games Full-Day workshop will take place on November 26th. It is a real hands-on event as you can see in the following video.


There are still some seats available. Contact us at ctsperu@customizedtrainingperu.com

Our last ICT and Web 2.0 Tools Full/Day Workshop of 2017 was run on October 29th. Watch the video to see the teachers who attended the course sharing and learning.

Monday 21 August 2017

Due to the fact that Soft skills are skills that help success in all professional areas, in CTS we have devoted all our academic events to developing this theme, our Conference cannot be the exception.
There will be four presentations, all of them on different soft skills: Leadership, self-confidence, stress management, communication, etc. 
You are all welcome but hurry, we have sold half of the capacity of the premises already !!

XII Facebook event


Each of these Facebook events is special but this last one was even more so because we had a new presenter, Ms Laura Marsh, the Academic Coordinator of Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya and also because it was the last event in NUTESA premises. NUTESA is a very old friend of ours and have always supported our academic initiatives providing not only the premises but also the coffee breaks, book exhibitions and prizes. We will be forever in debt with them.

The video below shows a summary of our XII Facebook event, get ready because there is more to come.!


Friday 21 July 2017



Developing Soft skills

Topic:  Developing time management skills
For every teacher, time is an important resource since we usually feel that it is not possible to achieve what we need because there is far too much work for the number of hours in a day. As teachers we need to balance the long-term goals with the immediate needs of our students besides all the additional work that comes along: writing lesson plans, grading exams and filling grade sheets, parents´ meetings, etc.
For all these reasons we need effective time management skills, to increase our productivity and provide a better education for our students. Join us in this workshop to help each other manage the situation.

Presenter:
Maria Luisa Mu is the Academic Director of CTS. She was the General Coordinator of the Language Department at USIL and is a certified teacher trainer with ample experience teaching Business in England, Spain, Chile and Peru where she participated in the organization of the English for Business Programme at ESAN and Universidad del Pacífico. She has also taught ESP at UNDP, FAO, OIT and UNESCO.
Maria Luisa is an educator who holds a Master in English Language Teaching from the University of Sheffield, England and has Post-Graduate Degrees (Diplomado de Segunda Especialidad) in Educational Management (PUCP), Information Technology (USIL), Curriculum Design for Distance Learning Courses (PUCP), Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (PUCP) and Teacher Training (UPCH).
She was the tutor of the blended-learning Master Degree course in TEFL from Universidad de Piura / FUNIBER and is currently one of their thesis advisors besides being a Speaking Examiner from Cambridge University from YLEs to CPE.

Topic:  Developing Self-Confidence: Helping Student’s Overcome their Fear
 In order to help our students achieve their best, we must understand what obstacles they are struggling with. In many cases, the limiting factor in a student’s progress is not a lack of ability or willingness to put in the work, but rather a lack of self-confidence. By helping students shake their fears and self-consciousness, we can encourage them to reach their full potential and share their knowledge and opinions with others.

Presenter:
Laura Marsh is a teacher from the United States who is currently working as Director of the Language Center at Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University and teaching specialized English classes to scholarship students focused on developing identity and professional and leadership skills. She holds a B.A. in Archaeology and an M.A. in Anthropology from Stanford University, and her studies focused on the societies of the Andes. Her ELT experience includes teaching one-to-one academic English classes to foreign graduate students at Stanford and teaching recent immigrants entering into an English-speaking public high school in California. She has also designed and taught various anthropology, archaeology, and cultural heritage courses at the university level.



Thursday 6 July 2017


Teaching is probably one of the most rewarding jobs although it may be the least well rewarded in terms of money in many countries.
In spite of that I am really happy to be a teacher and so today I need to thank my teachers for helping me to become who I am, I thank my fellow teachers for supporting and helping me to improve as a teacher. Last but not least, I am grateful to my students for teaching me how important it is to learn in order to teach.

Wednesday 24 May 2017


Thanks very much my dear colleagues for showing such enthusiasm and for being so keen at attending these academic events.
Below there is a video with the highlights of the event.

Wednesday 10 May 2017

CTS Courses  2017-0


At work (Customized Training Services), we believe that we never cease learning and that we cannot give out what we don´t have. Because of this, we try hard to provide other teachers of English courses that are going to help  them improve their language level and get an International Certificate as well.

I am lucky because I have two friends who share this goal: Liliana and Emma. Emma has so much patience and knows exactly what her students need to improve that has become a decisive element in the company.

One of the courses she teaches is Pre-FCE, a very important course since it helps students improve their language level by revising the grammatical structures the FCE (Cambridge English First) exam demands.

She also teaches the FCE Course preparation and Developing Writing Skills, she is a real expert in helping students go from understanding the writing process beginning from sentence connection to writing texts. Everything she does, she does it so well that I cannot think of a better academic partner.

Below we have some of the activities our current FCE students developed when they were in their pre-FCE course in the summer.



And in the Developing Writing course:





Our next event is our XI Facebook event, we expect it to be as useful for our colleagues as the previous ten.


Wednesday 3 May 2017


It may seem so soon but it is time now of our XI Academic Facebook event based on the theme for this year: 21st Century skills in Education. This time it is the turn of Soft skills and another guest speaker Maggie Steingraeber from the American Embassy.
Please read below the summary of the presentations:

 Topic: Soft Skills in Education

Soft skills such as social ability, resilience, self-control and time management can be integrated within a course by means of project-based learning, group work and non-cognitive skills. This workshop will develop the why and the how of Soft skills and how to conciliate them with the cognitive skills we teach in the classroom.

Presenter:

Maria Luisa Mu is the Academic Director of CTS. She was the General Coordinator of the Language Department at USIL and is a certified teacher trainer with ample experience teaching Business in England, Spain, Chile and Peru where she participated in the organization of the English for Business Programme at ESAN and Universidad del Pacífico. She has also taught ESP at UNDP, FAO, OIT and UNESCO.

Maria Luisa is an educator who holds a Master in English Language Teaching from the University of Sheffield, England and has Post-Graduate Degrees (Diplomado de Segunda Especialidad) in Educational Management (PUCP), Information Technology (USIL), Curriculum Design for Distance Learning Courses (PUCP), Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (PUCP) and Teacher Training (UPCH).

She was the tutor of the blended-learning Master Degree course in TEFL from Universidad de Piura / FUNIBER and is currently one of their thesis advisors besides being a Speaking Examiner from Cambridge University from YLEs to CPE.
 

Topic: Cross-cultural communication

When people talk about 21st century skills, the first thing that comes to most minds is technology. While digital literacy is important for success in the modern age, there is another essential skill that has emerged as a result of the globalized world: Cross-cultural communication. Through the advancements of communication technology, social media in particular, the world is a smaller place. You are just one click away from communicating with someone on the other side of the world! For this reason, language users must be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary for effective communication with people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This presentation will address some key considerations for effective cross-cultural communication.

Presenter:

Maggie Steingraeber currently lives in Lima, Peru as an English Language Fellow, a US Department of State funded program. She works closely with the Peruvian Ministry of Education in the Department of Initial Teacher Training to reform the national curriculum and strengthen classroom methodology. Her passion for language and culture began with a high school exchange program that took her from the Midwestern state of Wisconsin to the foothills of the Andes in Mendoza, Argentina. She holds a BA in Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin and a MA in TESOL from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She specializes in curriculum design and materials development as well as teacher training and educational technology. She has previously worked as a teacher and teacher trainer in the United States, China, India, Argentina, and Chile.

Tuesday 11 April 2017

 X CTS Academic Facebook Event


I love CTS Academic Facebook events. It is a time to meet old friends some of them have been attending these events since 2014. Their loyalty and perseverance really moves me and obliges me to search for the latest trends in the topics they request. 

This year we want to do things even better and that is why we have requested other lecturers in order to expand ideas and provide different backgrounds and points of view.

This first workshop of the year  was special because the  lecturer is a very good friend of mine who has specialized in Neuroscience and we could make the connection between Neuroscience and Education. 

We are looking forward to knowing more and more about this interesting and useful topic.


Monday 20 March 2017

Due to the recent events in our country, the beginning of this course will take place on March 28th. There are still three seats left so if you are interested in joining us please contact us.




Happy with the beginning of our Grammar course last Saturday

Wednesday 8 March 2017


Since we are currently running our 15th preparation course for CLIL, as Academic Director of Customized Training Services, I would like to share a video of some of the activities-behind exam practice- we do as part of a session.




We look forward to meeting you in our next course.

Thursday 2 February 2017




TKT CLIL Preparation Course


 A CLIL Science lesson
 This is really awesome!!!

We (CTS) have received requests of people who want to do the TKT CLIL on Saturdays so here you are:



TKT Core and TKT Specialization

For all those who still do not know the difference between them, here you are a summary in this prezi:

Monday 30 January 2017


Do you need to improve your methodology skills? Join us in the first CLIL preparation course of 2017 and get a certificate from the University of Cambridge that will credit your knowledge of how to use CLIL principles.
Contact CTS ctsperu@customizedtrainingperu.com for further information.




Our Fourth Summer course in January brought along several innovations. A huge emphasis on the use of ICT tools all along the course that is still on made participants learn how to use Easy class, padlets and screen shots.  
It was certainly good to see participants create their own padlets and contribute to the module´s padlet.  
We are happy to share some of our participants´experience in the course: 




 
  You can see the tentative Take Away Padlet of the course below.


Made with Padlet
Happy Chinese New Year 2017




May your life go smoothly

May you find success in your career

Fortune will  smile on you

May  all your wishes come true

Friday 13 January 2017

Wednesday 4 January 2017

Fourth Summer Course for Top English Teachers 2017






Happy New Year!!!

At CTS we are really proud of being members of the ELT community where we know each other and most of all, help each other.

We closed our Academic events of 2016 with a workshop on
Activities to develop skills for the 21st Century and were really touched to see how much our colleagues invest in terms of time and effort to attend all our events. We have teachers who have attended almost the nine events and new teachers who have just joined our CTS family.
 
This new year brings lots of challenges in education, that is why we would like to begin it inviting you to our Fourth Summer Course. As usual, the first week is modular and face-to-face (Jan 16 to 20th) and the remaining weeks will be developed online where you will have to put into practice the ICT tools that will be presented in the face-to-face session to deal with the tasks from the different modules.
We always take into account our participants´ requests and that is why this year we are offering the following modules:
  • 21st Century Skills
  • ICT in the classroom
  • Writing: the neglected skill
  • Supporting learning for children and teens
  • New trends in classroom methodology

We look forward to hearing from you soon since, as you know, we work with small groups and there are now few seats left.




End of 2016

And 2016 is gone and we had a wonderful farewell with our colleagues participation in our Ninth Academic Event.

This is a summary of the event, good to see old and new faces but above all, good to see people involved in all the activities.

Thank you 2016 !!!