Pippa Donaldson

I am very excited to be joining the ISM team for the upcoming 2022/23 academic year and look forward to new experiences and meeting multiple nationalities, as well as having the chance to share and learn (once a life-long learner, always a life-long learner). From my earliest memories, I have had a fascination with travelling and learning about new cultures. Teaching has given me the chance to fulfil that dream whilst working in a challenging and rewarding career. I love meeting people from different backgrounds and countries and have dipped my toes into Asian culture via Singapore, as well as experiencing Russia nearly a decade ago as a first-time away from home, first flight and first job candidate! Russia was most welcoming and I have always held fond memories of my time there. My teaching philosophy is constantly evolving but I prefer to think about learning and helping others to learn as opposed to 'teaching'. Often, I think teaching is seen as a single-dimension career that can be summed up as imparting information, which I believe is only the beginning and certainly only a small part of learning. I have come to the conclusion and try to implement in my classroom that the teacher’s greatest gift to the learners is to prompt them to be motivated to think and understand the 'why', and then to want to discover more. Some of my favourite activities include reading (all genres and styles) and then lively discussions of what happened, horse riding, family time and hiking.

Qualifications:Bachelor of Arts, Communication Sciences (UNISA) Post Graduate Certificate in Education (UNISA) TEFL Certificate (Bay Language Institute)