Julia Radlinger, Director of Studies – ELT

Education

She studied Secondary School Teaching with the subjects of English, German, Ethics, and Art at the University of Teacher Education in Bern. Originally from Switzerland, she has made Oxford her new home. Julia is very passionate about language learning and currently speaks five languages. Spanish and German amongst others, and she is working on her sixth language – Italian.

Professional experience

Throughout her career in education, Julia has worked in multiple primary and secondary schools in Switzerland, as well as international language schools in Switzerland and the UK as a teacher, and eventually as a manager, designing curricula and running academic operations. Her most recent post before coming to St. Clare’s involved preparing for and looking after 10 summer schools across the UK, Ireland, Malta, and France. She has been a speaker at webinars for English UK and has taught on CELTA courses, delivering young learner teacher training sessions. Julia is the Director of Studies being responsible for all things ELT at the International College as well as St Clare’s Summer and Short Courses.

Interests

When Julia is not working or learning a new language, she enjoys travelling. Having visited over 25 countries, she has made it her aim to explore at least one new place every year. She is also trained in classical singing. More specifically, she has specialised in baroque music, and -despite her favourite composer being Claudio Monteverdi – is a member of the Oxford Bach Choir.

Geoff Taylor

Education

He has a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts from St Martin’s School of Art, London, an MEd (English language teaching and educational technology) from the University of Manchester and the RSA Diploma (TEFLA).

Professional experience

Geoff Taylor teaches English as a foreign language (EFL). After almost 10 years teaching abroad, mainly at International House affiliated schools, on three different continents, he returned to Oxford and has taught at the International College at the Banbury Road Campus since 1992. Geoff was lead writer of “Keep Going 2”, a text book for the German-speaking market, and more recently published “Sounds IELTS”, an interactive pronunciation tutorial app. He has presented at the IATEFL annual conference and, over the years, led many teacher development seminars. For a number of years, he served as IATEFL Computer SIG webmaster and then as International Baccalaureate Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA) webmaster. He has worked as CALL Co-ordinator, Senior Teacher, ADOS, Summer School Director of Studies, and freelance as an Apple Demonstrator and technology consultant.

Interests

He is site contact person for the University and College Union (UCU), Secretary of his Labour Party branch, and an active campaigner for a fairer more tolerant Britain.

Julia Gutierrez

Professional experience

Julia has been teaching EFL for over 16 years, working in schools in Uganda, Australia, China and Austria, as well as the UK. She currently teaches on the University Foundation Course and teacher training programmes at St Clare’s.

At the beginning of her career, Julia worked as a volunteer in rural Uganda where she taught pupils from underprivileged backgrounds. She later went on to become Head of Foreign Teachers at the renowned Sun Yat Sen Memorial Middle School in China, where her responsibilities included designing and administering bespoke teacher training sessions. She gained her Trinity Diploma in 2006 and became a Trinity approved Teacher Trainer in 2012. Furthermore, she has held positions as EFL Programme Co-ordinator and Academic Manager at busy and prestigious schools. She has been an author and editor for the ELT Division of Oxford University Press since 2012. During this time, her work has included writing for their online testing system and the recent ‘Navigate’ course book, as well as preparing CEFR mapping documents for publications such as ‘New Headway’.

Interests

Julia loves travelling to new countries to learn about their culture and language. She also has a keen appreciation of the beauty of nature and enjoys spending time outdoors.

Keith Ibsen

Education

Keith Ibsen studied Modern Languages at the University of Westminster, which included a year studying in Mexico. After university he completed his TEFL qualification in 1996 and taught in Spain and Japan before returning to his hometown of Oxford. Since arriving at St Clare’s he has been working towards his DELTA certification.

Professional experience

As well as teaching he has worked as a restaurant manager, waiter, barman and lifeguard. Keith Ibsen is an English language teacher and has been teaching at St Clare’s since 2014. He is currently teaching on the University Foundation course and English language courses.

Interests

He is a keen traveller who has spent time in several countries over five continents. He is also interested in accents and languages, and as well as English he speaks Spanish and Japanese. In his spare time he plays too many board games, watches too many movies and drinks too much coffee.

Sarah Stretton

Education

Sarah has been a teacher for over 11 years, working in Spain, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. She currently teaches English, Academic subjects on the Undergraduate Programme and Teacher Training at the International College.  Sarah has a History degree from the University of York, a Master’s from Oxford Brookes University and the DIPTESOL which she completed in Barcelona. 

Professional experience

Before her teaching career, Sarah worked in the heritage sector, specifically historic and rare libraries. She began her teaching career teaching young learners in Andalucía in Spain where she was a centre Very Young Learner specialist. She then moved on to teach university students in Tokyo, Japan. Following this, she spent several years teaching English to international students in schools in Sydney, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand. After 6 years living and working abroad, she returned to work and live in the UK and first worked for St Clare’s in 2016 on the Summer School Programme.  

Since then, she has taught on several summer school programmes, taught English for Life and Exams and a Gateway to Foundation course at the International College. In the last couple of years, Sarah has moved into teacher training and has taught several teacher development courses for St Clare’s, including online courses for teachers in Argentina and Mozambique. She also teaches Children’s Literature for the International College’s Undergraduate programme to American education students from Elon University. 

Interests

Outside of her work at St Clare’s, Sarah is a writer and won an international writing award in 2019 and has had several works of short fiction and poetry published. In her role as a writer, she also works as a Creative Writing tutor and mentor for local charity Fusion Art Oxford. Sarah is a very keen reader and regularly reviews books. She has organised a women’s book club in Oxford for the past four years.