From profile as text to lived profile
At the beginning of my IB journey, the Learner Profile was something I could name and describe. Through the unit-planning process, it became something I could design for and observe. Inquirers appeared when students generated questions for the Wonder Wall. Communicators developed through oral storytelling and interviews. Open-mindedness became visible when students listened to family and cultural stories that were different from their own. The Profile moved from text on a page to lived classroom experience.
That shift — from knowing about something to building it into practice — is what I now understand education to mean. It is not enough for IB principles to be present in a lesson plan. Students should recognise them, reflect on them, and understand how to transfer them to new contexts.
Confucius once said, "Learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous." Living and teaching in Chongqing, this quote has always felt personally close — but it is only now, within the IB framework, that I am beginning to truly understand it.
What I believe about language learning
Language isn't a subject. It's how people make sense of the world and find their place in it. In my classroom, English is the medium through which students explore identity, culture, and ideas — not just a set of grammar rules to memorize. I want students to leave my class thinking in English, not just performing it.
Multilingual learners do not need to wait for perfect English before they can participate in meaningful inquiry. Visual scaffolds, oral rehearsal, drawing, family interviews, and mother-tongue contributions allow students to express identity while continuing to build English. The moment reflection — or language — becomes a graded performance, the real learning vanishes.
What if the most important thing I teach has nothing to do with English?
This question stopped me during a professional learning session on AI in language teaching. I had been asking myself why my students still need me if AI can generate a personalized English lesson in seconds. The answer I kept returning to is that my real role is teaching cultural knowledge, intercultural relationships, and language as connection — not grammar transfer.
What AI cannot replicate is the relationship built in a classroom. The moment a student feels genuinely heard in a second language is not something a tool can create. That moment is why I teach.
How this shows up in my teaching
- Inquiry-first units — every unit starts with a question students genuinely care about, not a topic handed down from a textbook
- Transdisciplinary connections — language learning connected to science, culture, history, real-world issues — not siloed into "English time"
- Student voice and choice — students lead discussions, design projects, and direct their own reflection
- Cultural affirmation — lesson content that reflects my students' own backgrounds alongside global perspectives
- Assessment that informs, not just measures — formative comment banks, oral assessments, and student-led showcases rather than test scores alone
- Reflection as a genuine habit — not a graded performance at the end of a unit, but a regular, scaffolded part of how we learn together
On being a trilingual teacher in China
Growing up Hungarian, learning Mandarin as a second language, and teaching in English daily gives me a particular perspective on what language learners go through. I know what it feels like to be a beginner in a language you desperately want to use. I know the frustration of having complex thoughts but limited vocabulary to express them. That experience makes me a more patient, more precise, and more empathetic teacher.
Learn language. About language. Through language.
Building the forms, vocabulary, and structures students need to communicate with confidence across contexts.
Developing awareness of how language works, reflects culture, shapes identity, and connects communities.
Using English as the medium to explore real ideas, real questions, and real connections to the world — not just practice sentences.
What I'm working toward
I'm not interested in just delivering curriculum. I want to help build the kind of school culture where inquiry is the norm, where teachers collaborate on real problems, and where students see themselves as global citizens — regardless of where they grow up. That's what IB authorization means to me at BI Zandem: not a rubber stamp, but a genuine shift in how we think about education.
My principal once showed me a small notebook full of crossings-out in red pen and told me that reflection is what gives her courage — that by looking back and learning from mistakes, the unknown stops being terrifying. I want to build that same habit into my own practice, and into the learning culture of every classroom I work in.