Jacob: Tennessee tutor
Certified Tutor
Hello!
I'm New York City born and raised. I graduated from the University of Chicago last year with a degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations. I am developing my own teaching methods to evolve traditional East Asian and French language acquisition, and to do this I need even more experience. My course of study has been directed at learning as much as I can about the culture, economy, and history of East Asia, China and Japan in particular. I view myself as someone who is entrepreneurial, collegial, individually motivated to produce high quality work, as well as foster a love of the subject which I teach. I am compassionate and enjoy working with both children and adults. I believe I have something to learn from everyone I meet.
I have experienced a variety of textbooks and language teaching methods from elementary to collegiate. I have been taught by professors that have textbooks used around the country, as well as some considered to be experts in their field including Hiroyoshi Noto, Guy Alitto, and Edward Shaughnessy. I have 3 years private tutoring experience in Chinese and Japanese language. I know more than the 2000 characters required for proficiency in reading and writing, both in Japanese and Chinese (simplified and traditional character sets), a total of about 5700 characters. so I can help you no matter your age or proficiency level.
I spent seven years of grade school learning French, culminating in an advanced literary French class. I am familiar with spoken and written French, and a variety of textbooks and teaching methods. I believe it's important for a student to get a deep familiarity with the complexity of French grammar before advancing to any other point. I've maintained a high degree of fluency: I spent two and a half years tutoring two middle schoolers from France in bible studies, and some of our lessons were conducted completely in French.
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Undergraduate Degree: University of Chicago - Bachelors, East Asian Languages and Civilizations
- SAT Composite (1600 scale): 1440
- SAT Verbal: 720
- SAT Writing: 700
I bike around 20 miles a day. I translate classical Japanese and Chinese poetry into English. I also am currently reading Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" in English and French at the same time.
- AP French Language and Culture
- Conversational Mandarin
- French
- French 1
- French 2
- French 3
- French 4
- German
- German 1
- Japanese
- Languages
- Mandarin Chinese
- Mandarin Chinese 1
- Mandarin Chinese 2
- Mandarin Chinese 3
- Mandarin Chinese 4
What is your teaching philosophy?
I tailor lesson plans for each student's specific needs. I use a largely "implicit" method of instruction, as opposed to "explicit". I'll often ask you how you "feel" about a particular word or grammar point, provoking open discussion, instead of just giving you the explicit or textbook answer. I want you to be able to develop an intuitive sense of how parts of a language work, which allows you to manipulate and expand your usage faster than just memorizing.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
I evaluate the student's individual needs and listen to their goals. I establish benchmarks based on where they want to be and where they currently are.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
I want to help develop a student's internal sense of how a language works, so that in the future they are able to take new words or grammar and understand them intuitively without too much outside help.
How would you help a student stay motivated?
I make learning the subject matter exciting for them - I give them real-world examples of why it's important or useful to know the language.
How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?
I will give them exercises that are designed to target what they might be missing from their reading comprehension toolkit. So for example, if they are studying Chinese, I will give them radical identification practice - radicals are "clues" that help you understand and remember what each character is.
What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?
Listening is extremely important - chances are they aren't being listened to by their classroom teacher, and I can do better than that. In addition, I want the student to understand any difficulty they experience is not their fault or that there is something wrong with them.