Holly: Tacoma tutor

Certified Tutor

I've a passion for language, literature, culture and travel. Continuing to learn as I teach is vital to me and tutoring affords me the fantastic opportunity of sharing my knowledge, experience and enthusiasm. I got my English degree from Northern Arizona University where I was also an athletic trainer. While my love is admittedly poetry and literature, I am also a science geek and medicine called to me before teaching did. My TEFL with an IELTS certification allowed me to live and teach in Indonesia for almost three years. I taught a wide age range of students both in person then online extensively (as most of found ourselves in early 2020 and then too long after that). Being a curious bird by nature, I found the cultures and languages of Southeast Asia to be captivating. I asked as many questions of my students as they did of me and that helped us relate and work together. Some of my proudest times there (and when I returned home teaching online and in class) were when I would have students with those aha! I get it, I can do it ! breakthroughs. I am currently learning Spanish ( again) and definitely appreciate those forehead smacking aha! moments for myself, as well. For my IELTS and TOEFL students, we started from where they were and built on strengths while working on the tough stuff, primarily writing. I truly believe that listening to students is key for success for both parties. Continual communication is extremely important. Humor and having fun while learning is not only possible but necessary for me and is the way I prefer to teach and tutor. I have found that mistakes will and must be made to move forward, and keeping it light while still putting in the work helps immensely.