For Guest Lecturers         About the BI        Your Trip        About Us

First-Time Teachers
We request that guest teachers submit their material to the Academic Department (preferably by email) no later than 6 weeks prior the starting date of the course. This gives us time to review the notes, format them and correspond with you if we notice any problems, or if something is not completely clear to us. Although we would prefer to have quizzes and tests ahead of time, we understand that you may need to wait until you are already here to actually prepare quizzes and tests, especially the final exam.

Returning Teachers
Having taught here before, you are already familiar with the general process. If you will be teaching a new course, please follow the general guidelines for first-time teachers. If you have taught the same course in our school before, we should have all of your notes, quizzes and tests on file in both English and Hungarian. If you make changes to any of your previous material, please try to have those changes to us 6 weeks in advance.

Sending files to us
We have hi-speed internet access, so sending files of any size are not a problem for us. However, you may encounter size limitations imposed by your internet provider. You may send the files to fsantos@eletszava.org or academicsecretary@eletszava.org.

Notes format & style
We encourage our guest teachers to use an “evacuated outline” format as their outline style, providing enough room between the lowest points in the outline for students to take notes at that level. You will find some links to sample notes at the end of this section in PDF format. Below are some basic, but essential guidelines that work best in our unique academic setting, including the fact that we must translate all of the notes.

1) Outline sections should generally be in a title format (1-5 words), but no more than one full sentence.

2) Please try to avoid developing the outline to any deeper than the 3rd level.

3) Either Times Roman or Arial, at 12 points, are the preferred font types and size for the notes.

4) For most sections there is generally no need to provide more than 6 lines spacing between the lowest level points of the outline. It may be that you only need double spacing between a point and the next lower level of the outline if your teaching focuses on the lower level point.

5) If you feel you need more space for any given point, please note that we generally only print notes on one side of the paper, so the students have extra space for taking notes on the facing page.

6) A good rule of thumb for evacuated outline style notes is 1 1/2 to 2 pages of notes per class-hour. Therefore, if you are teaching for one week (10 class-hours) your notes should be between 15 and 20 pages long. For two weeks, this would be between 30 and 40 pages. Please try to avoid going over these limits or it becomes too great a task for our translators and uses a lot of paper.

7) In Europe, the paper size is A4, which is a bit longer and narrower than the 8 1/2” x 11” letter size standard in the U.S. This is a standard size, listed in the available sizes for your default printer at home, so if you prepare the notes on this size paper it greatly simplifies the formatting work on our side.

8) It would be helpful to include a syllabus as the first page of the notes that briefly overviews the course and also gives the course requirements and percentage breakdown for each requirement.

9) Maps and pictures can be included, but should be kept to a minimum. Remember that place names are usually different in Hungarian, which complicates the translating process as it requires knowledge of photo-editing software to edit in the Hungarian names as well as a significant amount of time.

Sample notes
Exposition of Joshua
Exposition of Colossians
Intro to Apologetics
Exposition of Hebrews
Strategic Planning (Intro)

Using PowerPoint
Powerpoint is used extensively by our resident teachers and can be an effective teaching tool when used properly. However, it also presents some unique challenges because of the bilingual nature of the program.

Reformating PowerPoint slide to effectively combine both English and Hungarian is an extremely complicated and time-consuming task.

As a visual ehancement if you have many pictures and graphics it may be worth it to use your PowerPoint presentation in English only. If it is important to have Hungarian on the slide at the same time, please make sure that you send your PPT files 5-6 weeks ahead of time to give us enough time to translate them.

Here are some general guideline when preparing PPT presentations for use in both languages.

1. Create the slide with a layout that will accommodate two languages at the same time by placing a duplicate of the English on the same slide to see how the page looks.
2. Use as little text as possible - with only 1-4 word titles. If at al possible do not use full sentences or multiple sentences for a single point.
3. The smallest font size that can be effectively seen is about 16 points, and 18 is preferable.
4. Bullets are usually not necessary especially with both languages being used, and only serve to add clutter to the look of the page.
5. Adjust the line and paragraph spacing to give about 85% between lines (with different languages stating the same point, and 1.5 line spacing between major points. 

Because both classrooms contain projectors, we are we well equipped to handle most kinds of multi-media presentations. Please inform the Academic Dean in advance if you will need a projector ready for your first hour of class. 

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at any time.