Cormac

Hi, I’m Cormac. Despite being from Bath, England, my teaching experience actually comes from Palín, Guatemala, where I taught over a hundred students, both in person and online lessons. I’ve become really interested in how we learn languages and have discovered some really useful approaches and methodologies for how to learn languages which I have used to learn Spanish to C1 level. This has got me really excited to share my knowledge and experience with others, as well as learn from other people about how they have learnt English (I always ask people I meet who have amazing English how they learnt it so I can steal their tricks haha). I think people sharing their experiences is a really useful and motivating part of learning a new language.

A bit about me, I am half-English, quarter-Spanish, quarter-Ukranian. I went to the University of Leeds to study Medical Sciences where I received the highest academic awards. I was also lucky enough to spend a year working at Imperial College London at their Centre for Psychedelic Research with some of the biggest names in Psychedelic Science like Prof David Nutt, Dr Robin-Carhart Harris and Dr David Erritzøe. I consider myself to have a strong academic background that I think will be useful for students who want to practice/improve their academic/formal English or who want to chat and discuss about science and technology etc. I love making electronic music at home and have had a release on a music label with a few more of my tracks on my Soundcloud. My exercise of choice has to be swimming because the technique is so important which is the kind of thing I am a proper nerd about haha.

So I spent 2 months teaching English at an English Academy in Palín, Guatemala. Palín is a small town (80,000 people) and isn't overflowing with opportunities for the people there, so learning English can be a really important skill for kids there to learn. I was lucky enough to be given two classes that I taught solo for the whole of my stay there, one was an advanced class of 10-17 year olds and the other was a smaller group of more intermediate learners from 14-55 years old. For some of the other classes I would help out their teachers and take over their classes or provide explanations and support. On top of that, I also had a class of online students that I saw twice a week. I am a big proponent of Comprehensible Input as a methodology which I will happily explain in greater detail when we speak properly (I get very animated talking about it haha.)
My expertise would include medical/academic/scientific English, language learning, philosophy, technology, and why Manchester United is the best team in the world ;)