Jonathan

I'm a passionate linguist and educationalist. Based in Birmingham, I am married to the lovely Joanna and have two kids, Josiah and Halle. I love working with people, and seeing my student's grasp of a language flourish. I studied Spanish, French and German at Durham University, and am equally proficient in all three. In 2014 I earned a Masters in Education Leadership, which boosted my classroom practice, and led to advisory roles for the Department for Education in school improvement and National Curriculum test development.

At a personal level, I'm pretty laid back and love to build good working relationships with all my students.

Tutoring Experience

I am a qualified teacher of Spanish, French and German. I have taught in the classroom and been a private tutor for six years. This includes working as a Head of Languages in a secondary school for four years.

I've had proven success. Due to my GCSE results, I was promoted to Head of Department within two years of stepping foot in the classroom - success which I sustained at KS3, GCSE and A-Level.

While I love the classroom, my passion has turned towards one-to-one tuition, simply because the learning gains are so quick. Since taking on new roles for the Department for Education, I have more flexibility to offer private tuition, bringing my experience of Ofsted-outstanding teaching and learning to my online lessons.

Tutoring Approach

When I was a pupil, with an overemphasis on vocabulary, and an underemphasis on grammar, this form of language-learning limited my progress. This motivated me to become a languages teacher who gives students the underlying framework of a language in order to accelerate their progress toward fluency. This means studying grammar! There's no hope of improvement without it!

Finally, something I place a high value on is explaining to you, where appropriate, the language learning process so that you can begin to map out your learning journey towards fluency.

With me as your tutor, you can expect to be supported and challenged, while having a lot of fun along the way. Get in touch!