Christi Ann Moody

Christi-Ann is a primary school teacher from Adelaide, Australia. She began her teaching career in a high student needs, low socio-economic area, where many children did not have family support and education wasn’t seen as a priority. It was a challenging place to start, but it set her up well for classrooms in the future as she trialed creative, positive & relationship based behaviour management strategies to get her students engaged, involved & excited about learning.

Christi-Ann studied Japanese through school & University, and so she then took on some Japanese language teaching positions in large primary schools in South Australia, where she would teach over 800 students per week. This experience built her organisation, time management & efficient planning & assessment strategies. With 4 years experience, Christi-Ann was interested to travel and teach abroad. Her first stop was Japan, where she took on teaching 3rd Grade at Tokyo West International School, and then moved into the role of curriculum coordinator & PK3-K5 Department Head. After that, she took on a 1-Year cultural teaching exchange to North America. The program brought over 100 teachers from abroad annually to schools in America’s south, where statistically 98% of students would never travel abroad in their lifetime, and over 60% would never leave their own state. This Cultural exchange program allowed students to meet teachers from many regions of the world & have their minds opened to the possibilities and diversity that lay outside their own realm of experience.

Returning from her year in North America, Christi-Ann took on her first Junior Primary classrooms and began to have a great interest in the early years. She trained in Jolly Phonics, Real-World Maths for Early Years and began her own research into Inquiry Approach teaching pedagogy.

Her next teaching appointment was at the Australian International School of Jakarta, Indonesia. Here, she was able to practice her TESOL skills she had studied in her Masters Degree of Eduction, focusing on English Language Learners. Her Foundation classroom in Jakarta represented over 10 different cultural backgrounds & languages, and is where Christi-Ann developed her explicit language teaching approach and integrated emotional and social Education into her program, as many students were away from their home countries and were adjusting to large life transitions. From Jakarta, it was a 2 year stop back at home in Adelaide. Here Christi-Ann began her IB training & taught Foundation in a private college. With IB training, and looking for another International experience, she then decided to take on an adventure in Hangzhou, China.

In China, Christi-Ann taught Pre-K students from various language backgrounds & grew her skills in collaborative teaching with a Mandarin Co-Teacher & Teaching Assistant. It was here in China that she worked alongside Eda Go, another enthusiastic teacher in the Early Years. Since moving on from this school, they have continued to develop their teaching skills & Christi Ann is really thriller to be able to collaborate again on Teacher Trails projects now in 2020.