Mary Slattery is a teacher and freelance teacher trainer. She began her career in the 1970s teaching English and Spanish in Dublin, Ireland. In the 1980s she started to teach English as a foreign language. She has taught children and adults at all levels and has written articles on various aspects of teaching. For the past 12 years she has designed and worked on short English language training courses for non-mother tongue primary teachers at the Applied Language Centre in University College Dublin and has given workshops in Europe. She works on Certificate and Diploma teacher development programmes and on short courses for international groups of teachers of English.