About the Director
John Kirk is an over 65 semi-retired English teacher who lived in Quito, Ecuador for over 10 years but has now relocated to Portland, Maine in the U.S.
He graduated from the University of Denver in 1973 with an English teaching degree. He also holds an AAS degree as a Dietetic Technician from Southern Maine Technical College; a Masters Degree in Reading Education from the U. of Maine at Portland-Gorham; and a Masters Degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from St. Michael’s College. He has had a variety of experiences teaching English.
He taught in Taiwan, China, and South Korea for six years in various universities and an international school. He has also taught English as a second language (ESL) in workplace education sites in the states of Maine and Massachusetts for 10 years.
In Boston he was director of the ESL program for hourly/immigrant workers in a large hospital for two years. There were 115 employees/students.
Before moving to Quito, Ecuador he taught in Cuenca for two years for the Dept. of Education, The University of the Pacific, and CEDEI, a private English school. In Quito he has worked for the Inlingua Institute, the UNITA Technological University America, and has had his own business giving English classes.
He has been retired for several years but is now teaching the 20 workshops which are posted on this website. They include 10 English workshops, which introduce various aspects of independent language learning; seven Spanish speaker classes, which include home study information for pre-school, primary, secondary, pre-university testing preparation and two levels of adult basic education; and several bread/grain making workshops for making bread with and without an oven and using a pressure cooker. The theme of the bread without an oven class is to show how to raise the protein level in the diet of small children and the elderly. It can also include instruction in using the pressure cooker for grains and beans.
All 20 of the workshops are based on the theme of how to use the Internet without of cost to improve your abilities in different topics and provide free website archives for the participants. They also give support to the UN Global Goals 2- Zero Hunger and 4 – Quality Education.
To find out more about the presentations, please read their descriptions on the home page of this website.
Because the language study materials John uses in the workshops are written for educational and non-commercial purposes, he does not charge for the presentations. AOK is John Kirk’s personal retirement project, not an organization.
John B. Kirk, Director
AOK Basic Skills Project
Portland, Maine
E: kirkjohnb5@gmail.com
W: www.aokbasicskills.gratis