As far back as she can remember, Ms. Issa has been fascinated with American and British popular culture. She admits that her English reflects what is often referred to as “Disney language,” acquired from watching movies on the Disney Channel and the Arabic language channel MBC 3. She also reminisces about the joy she felt singing songs and playing games in her primary school English classes that complemented her learning. Yet she confesses that, in middle school, when the focus of her classes turned to grammar, she lost interest for a while, at least academically

On any given weekday, Ms. Chera starts her day teaching preschool at Santa Teresa de Jesus. After a full day of teaching the little ones, she goes to CCPA to teach after-school English classes to children or to teenagers in the English Access Microscholarship Program. Access classes meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while the classes for children meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Saturdays at CCPA, Ms. Chera teaches intensive English classes to adults. Teaching adults who work in different fields such as law and medicine challenges Ms. Chera to be aware of specialized English vocabulary that she might not otherwise know

Delving into that communicative space that exists between teacher, student, and the subject material is at the core of the pedagogy of this Mauritania-born teacher, who first came to Cote d’Ivoire in 2017 after many classroom journeys of his own. Since his first English class in 2000 at the age of 14, he was motivated to learn English, a language then revered in Mauritania as the language of globalization. He was fortunate to have a teacher who, unlike many he had previously encountered, encouraged him in his learning.

The teacher, Özlem Khan, looked at her former student and replied gently. “It’s the same for me. Every term presents new challenges but reaps new rewards.” Ms. Khan’s sentiment reflects her approach to teaching. She fosters autonomy in her students—future English language teachers in Turkey—through instructing them on how they can use learner-centered teaching strategies in their own classrooms.

Mukadas Tashieva has a personal history that reflects the changes her nation continues to undergo as it transitions from Soviet Kyrgyzstan to the post-Soviet Kyrgyz Republic. As a faculty member at the Osh State University Faculty of Foreign Languages and Culture, a leader and trainer for the Kyrgyzstan Forum English Teachers’ Association (KFETA), and an English Access Microscholarship coordinator and instructor, she has many roles as both an educator and a leader.

When you want to learn about teacher training in Namangan, everyone knows—ask Mamura. Mamura Alimova is a senior teacher in the English Philology Department at Namangan State University, located in the beautiful Fergana Valley of eastern Uzbekistan. Ms. Alimova’s university, in the heart of the moderately sized city of Namangan, is known as one of the best in the Fergana Valley and for producing renowned scientists and professionals.

Yurany Monsalve boards a seven-seat turbo-propelled airplane to commute between two teaching sites in Chocó, a coastal province in Colombia. From Monday to Thursday, she teaches English to teenagers in a beachfront classroom in Nuquí—then flies over the jungle to Quibdó, on the Atrato River, to teach university students in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellowship Program on weekends.

Each morning, Catherine Njau walks up a steep dirt road on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro to Mboni Secondary School. She has taught English there for 15 years, yet she constantly strives to update her teaching methods and sees herself as a modern teacher in an environment where traditional teaching methods are still the norm.

Zelila Roziyeva is an English teacher and administrator. But she begins each workday—Monday through Saturday—by waking up at 6 a.m., making breakfast for her family, and helping her two children get ready for school. She and her husband, Nazar, drop them off, and then Ms. Roziyeva begins her day at the Institute of International Relations (IIR), while Nazar goes on to his job at a bakery.

During a recent English class at the Universidad Tecnológica El Retoño (UTR) in Aguascalientes, the teacher, Celeste Fernández, asked a student a question. When the student paused for a few seconds, other students shouted out answers. Ms. Fernández reminded those students, “Give her time to think, please!”

Sarina Monh, a lecturer at the prestigious Royal University of Phnom Penh’s (RUPP) Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL), comes from a family of teachers. Her father’s family taught Khmer literature and mathematics, while her mother’s family members were doctors, nurses, and midwives who trained and mentored others. Still, she said, “I didn’t expect to become a teacher. I accidentally liked the English language.”

Anyone who has taught English in a country with limited chances for students to engage in authentic communication knows the challenges it can present: few opportunities for students to practice language skills and get meaningful feedback; outdated or ineffective materials; words and phrases memorized by students as if they were symbols on the periodic table of elements rather than a means of communication. To confront these challenges and push through them, you need to be a fighter. You need to believe in something better. You need to be someone like Olga Afanasieva.

Dr. Santosh Kumar Mahapatra did not grow up speaking English, and studying English in secondary school was not easy for him. In fact, he almost failed the subject in Grades 10 and 12. Later, after he earned a master’s degree in English Literature but still felt he could not speak the language well, he improved his English-speaking skills while earning a second master’s degree. Now, he not only holds a PhD in English Language Teaching, but he has also designed courses—including one called English Conversation Skills.

In his first teaching assignment, as a fifth-grade English teacher, Edgar Manaran had only 20 desks for 48 students. Yet he was able to apply productive classroom strategies throughout his 25-hour teaching week. Some of his students sat on plastic chairs due to the shortage of desks, but that did not change the dynamic of Mr. Manaran’s classes. He realized that the constant changing of seating arrangements increased the chance for students to interact with one another.

To increase students’ motivation, Ms. Kharkheli begins lessons with a warmup activity—such as showing images or making predictions—as a way to capture students’ interest in the day’s topic. And when teaching a new group of students, Ms. Kharkheli surveys them to learn their interests and hobbies. She uses that information to design lessons that integrate the learning objectives with topics she knows her students are already interested in.

In the High Atlas region of Souss-Massa in Taroudant province in the south of Morocco lies the modest rural commune of Askaoun. Karima Mezouari travels there weekly to provide English language instruction to middle-school students. Making the commute is no ordinary feat: the journey begins in the city of Agadir, and it takes three “grand taxis,” approximately 160 miles (257 kilometers) of travel, and anywhere from five to ten hours for Ms. Mezouari to reach Askaoun.

Yulia Bulatkulova discovered her passion for English language teaching at a young age as a result of the example set by an esteemed childhood English teacher, Elvira Kuyanova. “I liked the way she spoke, always in English, and I thought to myself, I want to be like her,” Ms. Bulatkulova recalled. She explained that it was her teacher’s command over a language different from the one they shared that captivated her interest.

If you are an English teacher in Upper Burma, particularly in Mandalay, you probably know Nyein Ei San. Ms. San has been active in the English language teaching (ELT) community in Burma for the past decade, teaching English as a foreign language and training English teachers in her local community. Ms. San works as what is commonly considered a private teacher. Being a private teacher in Burma means that she is not affiliated with a single school, but instead teaches at multiple institutions.

Yu Huang and Yu Zhu are senior high school English teachers at Hezhang County No. 2 Middle School in the province of Guizhou. In China, most middle schools consist of six grades of students; the first three years are considered junior middle school and the latter three years are commonly referred to as senior middle school (or sometimes senior high school). Both Ms. Huang and Ms. Zhu are dedicated to helping their students build interest in the English language inside and outside the classroom.