Steve

Hi. I’m Steve and I offer Skype English tuition for students aged between 8 and 18, specialising in GCSE and A Level English Language and English Literature.

Specialist help is vitally important at this time, with students having lost up to six months of education during last year and I teach both primary and secondary students.

I am especially interested in increasing the self-confidence of candidates approaching GCSE or A Levels. Many students who have missed out on the basics of English in the early years of secondary education feel daunted by the demands of the syllabus in Years 10 and 11. I have helped countless students unlearn previous bad habits in this subject and realise their potential as readers and writers

Tutoring Experience

I have an English degree and teaching qualification from The University of Exeter and spent thirty years as a Head of English Department in various schools around the London area, achieving high examination results.

One of the reasons for this was that I also worked for AQA, one of the principal examination boards in England, both as an examiner, marking and assessing examination scripts and latterly as a Subject Advisor. This involved training teachers to teach the syllabus, ensuring that they knew precisely how to maximise their student chances of success in examinations.

It is no surprise therefore, that when I began work as a one-to-one tutor ten years ago, I achieved outstanding examination results. The way I work is to get students, as soon as possible, to identify their own areas for improvement. I have found that the students who achieve greatest success are those who, early in our time working together, are setting the agenda for the lessons.

Tutoring Approach

.The key to success in English is practice.

That is why I endeavour to get students writing as much as possible during our hour’s tuition, often for as much as forty minutes. To be writing alongside someone who is individually monitoring your work and offering helpful, constructive criticism is something which classroom teaching cannot hope to offer, but which is essential for improvement.

I use WordPad or similar for students to write during the session, but if a student feels that they are more comfortable writing in longhand, this is no problem: they can simply write and then read the resulting piece back to me.

I fully realise that students’ and their parents’ main aim is to pass exams, but an ability to read and write English is vital to success in other subjects. Students whose English skills improve find that their grades in other subjects also improve. That is why, as well as cramming for an exam, I stress the importance and the enjoyment of increasing verbal and written proficiency in the subject.

Finally, I love teaching and am able to communicate my love of teaching, language and literature to those I teach.