Hi there, my name is Anastasia Andros* (Mrs) and I am the person behind EnglishLab.Net, which is a privately managed website for learners and  teachers of English as a Foreign or Second Language. I would eventually like it to grow to be a fully-fledged educational portal devoted to teaching and learning different languages, because English is not the only language that is worth learning! There are many more out there and I, for one, am fluent in three - English, Estonian and Russian.

EnglishLab.Net is not affiliated with any particular language school or company as of 2008. It is both my hobby and a personalized teaching tool which I use in my job working for various educational institutions.

I am an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher in Tallinn, Estonia, where I live with my husband and daughter. I have taught mostly Business English, ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and exam preparation classes such as ETS examinations, especially TOEFL and SAT, IELTS, and Cambridge ESOL Examinations since 1998. The majority of my students are aged 16 to 40, however, I occasionally teach very young learners who are as young as 4, and senior citizens.  I have taught people of various - primarily European and Asian - ethnic backgrounds. I have a lot of experience teaching speakers of Estonian, Russian and Ukrainian. I have also taught ethnic Lithuanians, Japanese, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijani (Azeri Turkish), Polish, Italians and Spanish.

My qualifications include a BA in International Business  (1999), a CELTA (1998) (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults), the latter conferred by the International House World Organization, and an FTBE (pass with distinction, Dec 2002) (Further Certificate for Teachers of Business English) issued by LCCIEB. I am doing an MA course in Educational Technology and TESOL at the University of Manchester at present to learn more about language teaching and instructional web design.

If you have any suggestions to make as to how EnglishLab.Net could be improved, feel free to drop me a line - I will appreciate your help. You can write in any of the four languages: English, Russian, Estonian or German, I would prefer one of the former three though, as I am operationally proficient in them all. My German is intermediate (Mittelstufe).

I am particularly looking forward to making friends with other teachers of English as a Foreign or Second Language (or any other language) who practise computer-assisted language teaching, are interested in Educational Multimedia Design and VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments) aka CMSs (Content Management Systems) such as those listed here.
 
Learning foreign languages is the most noteworthy hobby of mine. Apart from the languages I have already mentioned, I have also studied and can make myself understood in Spanish (the variety spoken in Latin America) and I am a big fan of Latin and Greek. I guess that like all people who have travelled overseas, I manage to learn a few pages of every phrasebook I buy whenever I set out to visit a country I have never been to before.

* "Anastasia" is my forename. It is of Greek origin and stands for "resurrected" or "brought back to life" in English. Some people call me "Stacey" for short. "Andros" is my surname. It is also of Greek origin and means "a person" or "a man" in English. Despite having such a name, I am not an ethnic Greek. Actually, it is a bit of a mystery what my ethnic origin is, but this is the only mystery I do not want to solve because my family is a real melting pot and I do not want to take sides or cause ethnic strife in my own home.

My life philosophy is simple: I put family values first and agree with T. A. Edison in that opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

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