Anita Efstathiou first started teaching 7 year olds with Jolly Phonics when she was concerned at their spelling. Impressed at the results she then started teaching it with 5 year olds (all non-native speakers) who again did outstandingly well. Anita has her own school and yet is keen to see all schools in Cyprus use this teaching, including government schools. Anita is also the Jolly Phonics distributor in Cyprus.
Paris
Rachel Griffin qualified in the UK and now teaches at the British School of Paris. The sheer enthusiasm of a Jolly Phonics trainer convinced her to try out the programme. Her colleagues soon followed suit when they saw her children’s amazing progress. She continues to teach native and non-native speakers with Jolly Phonics, and has started training teachers to use Jolly Phonique to teach their children French.
Sam Cartwright is a UK trained primary school teacher. She was introduced to Jolly Phonics during her teaching practice and has been hooked ever since. During the past six years she has taught Jolly Phonics to kindergarten children learning English as a second language with great success. She is currently the owner of the English Garden Pre-School in Budapest where she is happy to pass on her knowledge and experience through demonstration lessons or training sessions.
Milan
Diego Zaffaroni is a primary school teacher with a particular interest in teaching English to young learners. He is teacher responsible for the Bilingual Education Italy project in his school (which is supported jointly by the British Council, the Italian Ministry of Education and the Lombardy Regional Education Authority). He has seen better and better results with Jolly Phonics over the time he has used it, with children really liking it and on their way to becoming independent readers.
Victoria is Montessori trained and teaches in a church school. Her teaching with Jolly Phonics starts with the letter sounds not just for English but for Maltese too, which is demanding for them, but they cope well! She has seen the children captivated by the teaching, and it makes a very positive improvement to their learning.
Lisbon
Helen Askell has been using Jolly Phonics at the British Council in Lisbon for several years, with the Junior level children. They love it and it is going well. She has trained as a teacher trainer for bilingual education and also teaches creative drama and movement.
Fiona Dutu taught originally in the UK and now for many years in Romania, using Jolly Phonics for virtually every year she has taught! She started in Romania at an international school and she is now the Head Teacher at Acorns British Style Nursery in Bucharest. She has seen children of a range of ages love the programme and go at a faster pace.
Veca Avramov qualified as a teacher in Serbia and later graduated from Queen Mary and Westfield College in London in English Literature. She lived and worked in London for many years before returning to Serbia. She taught English to young learners in Serbia before starting her own language school, Jolly Bear Centre. She has been impressed with the speed and enthusiasm of the children in learning with Jolly Phonics and she eagerly gives training to schools in the region. Veca is also the distributor for Jolly Phonics in Serbia.
Seka Radović qualified as an English teacher in Novi Sad and then had her qualifications recognised in the UK where she worked for almost a decade. She started using Jolly Phonics in London, seeing how it is a great method. Back in Serbia, together with her best friend and colleague, Veca, she founded the Jolly Bear Centre, in her case in Novi Sad. She has seen excellent results which she shares with other teachers in her training.
Madrid
Coral qualified as a teacher in Britain, starting her career in England followed by some time in Egypt, before joining the Spanish Ministry of Education/British Council Bilingual Project in 1998. While teaching infants, Coral used Jolly Phonics and was amazed at the childrens interest and progress, and the high standards of literacy she achieved. She subsequently founded Jolly Centres in Spain, where children, parents and teachers now enjoy her lively training. Coral also collaborates with various Universities. As a Jolly Ambassador, she works closely with Education Inspectors and Local Authorities. She currently works with her team of trainers to deliver synthetic phonics training all over the world.
Madrid
Rebecca Wilson is the English department coordinator for a bilingual school in Madrid. Her school currently works as part of the British Council/MEC Bilingual Project for schools in Spain. She has been teaching in Spain for the last 10 years and has used the Jolly method for past eight years.
Inna Kell is from Sinelnikovo (near Dnipropetrovsk) and now divides her time between there and her main home in Lowestoft, England. She has had experience of Jolly Phonics from trialling it in her learning centre in Sinelnikovo, where she has seen children absorbed and learning very successfully, despite having English as a foreign language. Inna gives training in the Ukraine but it has to be scheduled in with her visits there.
*Stockist for Jolly Learning products in Ukraine*
Seka and Goran from Jolly Bear bookshop took Jolly Phonics along to the European Day of Languages 2011:
“We are happy to say that we took a part in the great event – the European Day of Languages, which was held on 24th September in Novi Sad, Serbia.
It was a great opportunity to promote Jolly Phonics and must admit that we managed to draw public’s attention with a very good looking stand presenting the fascinating Jolly Phonics teaching method. Visitors found it very interesting and so different from the others.”