Maria

I teach through my online classroom - a virtual world where we can make the most of unlimited online resources, including interactive whiteboards, vocabulary & quizzing platforms, and all different kinds of articles and videos.

Typically, my classes last an hour or an hour and a half, and we break this up into sections. The exact format will depend on your needs, interests, and goals, but it would often include a ten minute warm-up (speaking focused), followed by a reading/ listening exercise, grammar or vocabulary study, and then a discussion/ debate to use the focus of the lesson in conversation. It's important to me that my students really focus on speaking from day 1 - so, even if you're a beginner, you will be practicing saying words, phrases, or sentences, right from the beginning!

I think developing a language learning routine is incredibly important, particularly for beginners, so I will also set homework to be completed between classes. This could be watching a film or TV program, reading an article, listening to a radio show, or even writing a journal. All these things can then be used to further support our learning in the class time.

For those students who are keen to develop their writing skills in particular, we would focus on writing different forms of texts, reading and analysing writing by others, and discussing and practicing the features and formatting of formal/ academic English writing. We might focus on email writing, literature reviews, analysis, or creating different academic forms of writing: creative, argumentative/ persuasive, expository, research, narrative, or descriptive.