BETA Committee
I am a senior lecturer at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria, and have a PhD in methodology of teaching modern languages.
I have been teaching English to students of philosophy, policing, law, economics and socio-political studies for over twenty years. My main interests are ESP and translation. I was BETA Membership Secretary for the period 2014-2018 and have been PR and Scholarships Manager of the IATEFL ESPSIG since 2018. Currently, I have been doing research in ESP needs analysis and hybrid ESP courses.
Assoc. Prof. Veselin Petrov Chantov PhD graduated in English Philology from Veliko Tarnovo University St. St. “Kyril and Methodius” as a master of philology with specializations in “Teaching Methodology” and “Translation”. In 2008, he was appointed to SVUBIT as an English teacher. In 2014, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Model for the Development of Students’ Foreign Language Competence in an Information-educational Environment” in professional field 3.5. “Social Communications and Information Sciences”, Doctoral program: “Organization and management outside the Scope of the Producing Economy” at the Institute for Scientific Research and Doctoral Studies at ULSIT.
Dr. Chantov is an associate professor at ULSIT and Director of the Department of Comprehensive Studies. Author of more than 25 articles with participation in conferences in the country and abroad and a monograph entitled “Foreign Language Communicative Competence in the Context of Lifelong Education”. He is the author of the textbook “English for Information Technology Students” as part of project BG051PO001-4.3.04-0066 for adapted curricula and aids for electronic forms of learning. Chair and President of the Bulgarian Association for Quality Language Services OPTIMA.
Lina Yanbastieva-Petrova is a senior teacher of English as a foreign language at Yoan Ekzarh Balgarski Secondary School, Shumen and a PhD candidate at the Department of English Studiesat Shumen University. The topic of her PhD thesis is “Using teacher-created digital resources in developing students’ reading skills”. Being a certified mozaLearn ICT Expert and a Master Trainer of the Essentials Intel® Teach Program, she hosts webinars and trainings for teachers. She is a mentor to newly appointed teachers at Yoan Ekzarh Balgarski Secondary School as well as a teacher mentor to undergraduate students at Shumen University.
Her main professional and research interests are in the realm of integrating modern technologies and project-based learning principles in the process of language teaching and acquisition, since she believes that developing language skills and digital competence, as well as skills for life and work in the 21st century is of upmost importance for a person’s integration in the modern world.
I am a senior lecturer at the University of National and World Economy, where I teach ESP mainly to students of International Relations and Economics and Politics as well as general English. My main research interests are in the field of phonetics, prosody, and intonation.
As BETA e-newsletter editor, I hope I will manage to contribute to the future development of the Association.
Tsvetelena Taralova has been a secondary English language teacher and Erasmus+ coordinator for 20 years. She has completed teacher training courses in Dublin and London, and has been part of the Educational Leaders’ Training Program, organised by America for Bulgaria Foundation. Tsvetelena is interested in using ICT in teaching, project-based learning and cross-curricular lessons. For eight years she has been an eTwinning Erasmus+ ambassador for Bulgaria. At present, Tsvetelena works as the Head of the foreign language department at National High School in Finance and Business in Sofia.