About me
I’m a singing, dancing, English-teaching mother of three, with a gigantic passion for life. I have a real diversity of interests and pastimes. Of course, I’ve been in choirs all my life, and I love the powerful experience of communal singing. Apart from singing, I love reading science fiction, making macrame jewellery, playing tennis, cooking, having loud conversations at the dinner table and doing research into learning. I listen well, laugh easily, and give my opinion without hesitation. My husband is from Chile, and is also an educator and musician, so we are constantly exchanging ideas about our over-lapping fields of interest. Our home is noisy, loving, and full of the smells of good things to eat.
My experience
I’ve been an English teacher for my entire professional career. I’ve worked in kindergartens, primary schools, high schools and universities. I’ve run professional development courses with teachers from all over the world, and have conducted teacher development workshops in Australia, Japan, Macau, Chile and Brazil.
I’m passionate about the benefits of creativity in language learning. In particular, because I love music, I have always focused on language-learning through singing. As an undergraduate student learning Russian many (many) years ago, I started a Russian folk choir to help myself and my classmates improve our spoken Russian. When I started my English teaching career, I figured that the same idea could benefit my students. So I founded the University of Queensland international student choir (The ICTE Chorus), and was its artistic director for over 12 years. Thousands of students have been part of my choir family throughout my career, finding their lives changed by the experience.
Commendation: Award for Excellence in Community, Diversity and Inclusion
ICTE Chorus Team – Team members Vicki Bos and Fiona Wiebusch
University of Queensland – 2020
John Gallagher Professional Bursary for Contribution to the Sector
Proud Co-winner with Louise Kane, founder of the Rainbow Hub
English Australia – 2019
International Education Project Grant
In partnership with Donna Cook, Australian Catholic University
Trade and Investment QLD – 2018
Professional Development Grant to present at JALT conference, Japan
Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education – University of QLD (ICTE) – 2018
Award for Contribution to Professional Practice
English Australia – 2014
Best University and Most Popular: ICTE Chorus
Sing For Spring – 2014
Co-author of ICTE-UQ Bridging English text book, 2020
Bos, V. and Yucel, M. (2017) It’s a musical Language: The effect of intervention on pronunciation assessment outcomes In Burns, A. and Khalifa, H. Action Research and Language Assessment, Studies in Language Testing (SiLT), Cambridge English Language Assessment
Bos, V. and Yucel, M. (2015) Action Research as a means of stepping out of the teaching comfort zone In S. Borg and H. Sanchez (Eds), International Perspectives on Teacher Research (pp. 29-46). London: Palgrave Macmillan
Bos, V. and Yucel, M. (2013) It’s a Musical Language: A pronunciation intervention program with a twist. English Australia Journal 28(2), 59-64. Retrieved from English Australia.
Bos, V. and Yucel, M. (2013) The effect of action research intervention on pronunciation assessment outcomes. Research Notes 53, Cambridge ESOL. Retrieved from Cambridge English.
English Australia QLD branch PD Fest 2019
Sing it!
Teaching grammar through Song Lyrics
Japan Association of Language Teaching Conference 2018
It’s a Musical Language
Group Singing for Pronunciation and Productive Skills
English Australia Conference 2018
Raise Your Voice
The benefits of partnerships within the sector
Co-presenters Donna Cook and Nicole Patterson
UECA Assessment Conference 2018
Five Common Errors in Listening Assessment Items
UECA PD Fest 2018
Project-based learning
Passion, Creativity and Communication
NEAS Conference 2018
Raise Your Voice Choir Festival
The benefits of partnerships within the sector
English Australia QLD branch PD Fest 2018
Raise Your Voice Choir Festival
Plenary address (with choir)
Project-based learning
Passion, Creativity and Communication
English Australia Conference 2015
Performance of ICTE-UQ Chorus in plenary session
Demonstration of choral singing experience
Guest presentation (with choir and band)
English Australia QLD branch PD Fest 2015
Perfect harmony: The choral experience
The use of choral singing in English language teaching and learning
ALTAANZ Conference 2014
It’s a musical language
The effect of intervention on pronunciation assessment outcomes
Co-presenter Megan Yucel
English Australia Conference 2014
Perfect harmony: The choral experience*
The use of choral singing in English language teaching and learning
*Prizewinner EA Award for Contribution to Professional Practice
*Awarded ICTE-UQ Professional Development grant $800
English Australia PD Fest 2013
It’s a musical language
The effect of intervention on pronunciation outcomes
Co-presenter Megan Yucel
English Australia Conference 2012
2012 Action Research in ELICOS Program & research outcomes summary
Co-presenter Megan Yucel
English Australia QLD branch PD Fest 2009
Thinking inside the box
Ideas for learning and teaching vocabulary
QATESOL Conference 2008
Vocabulary Boxes
Ideas for learning and teaching vocabulary
My recent work
Let me tell you about some of the things I’ve been up to recently, and how they’ve influenced the creation of this website. I never teach anything without learning something.
In 2018 and 2019, I was co-director of the Study Queensland Raise Your Voice Choir Festival for international students and community choirs in Brisbane, Australia. This mass choir event was an enormous privilege to run, and I met so many wonderful musical people and educators through this project. I learned a great deal cross-culturally about the value of singing and community.
On the Action Research front, I worked with some very bright, enthusiastic and hard-working teachers from Taiwan in 2019, helping them to develop and implement their own action research projects in their classrooms. This was a highly successful collaborative program run through the University of Queensland and National Taiwan Normal University, and helped me understand where teachers and students in Taiwan are coming from.
In terms of practical classroom teaching development, I was privileged in 2019 to travel to Sao Paolo in Brazil to work with some very intelligent, interesting and dedicated lecturers from a variety of subjects, including Chemistry, Physical Education and Medicine, at UNESP. I ran a Content and Language Integrated Learning program there which was an excellent experience, giving me an insight into educational environments in Brazil.
2019 continued to be a great year for exploring teacher professional development, as I ran a course with the University of Queensland for a group of super-teachers from Chile, through the English Opens Doors program. The lesson design projects this group completed were outstanding, and again I found myself learning a great deal about teaching in Chile from the course participants.
Although 2020 was not a conventional teaching year, I was able to run an online choir for most of the year, and gained a great deal of technological and musical know-how from that experience. It helped me, my colleagues and students stay connected during some very difficult times. 2020 also gave me the opportunity to develop my tech skills for classroom use.
What you'll find on this website
On this website, I aim to provide two things for teachers – methodological advice based on solid theory and experience, and a bounty of practical lesson and activity ideas which I have collected and developed over the years. I want visitors to come here, find what they need, take it and use it immediately in their classrooms.
More than that, though, I hope to encourage teachers to be active learners and participants in their own professional development. In recent years, I’ve turned my focus to helping teachers become teacher-researchers and reflective practitioners. Teaching and learning are not one-size-fits-all, and it’s important to explore and evaluate our contexts in order to figure out what works for our students and for us.