Fresh faced with my TEFL certificate in hand, my very first English teaching job was in Guinea, West Africa. In a classroom of 45 mixed level, mixed age refugees, my teaching materials consisted of a blackboard, a piece of chalk and my coursebook from the 60s! The students were sharing one coursebook between 4 or 5 so I quickly realised I’d need some photocopies. With no electricity, this was kind of tricky and involved a walk to the local market to find someone with a generator and a working photocopier. It was a steep learning curve but one that taught me the value of improvisation and using what you have available to make learning fun and interactive. Fast forward 10 years and I’m now teaching everything on the Internet using my computer and Google Slides. Here’s how I got there: