Alan

Certified Tutor

I am a retired school teacher, with over 40 years of experience teaching English, Spanish, and English as a Second Language at all levels from grade school to adult continuing education programs.

My teaching philosophy is student-centered, meaning that to be effective, lessons must take into account the students??? ability and learning style. I believe that the core grammatical fundamentals of the language must form the basis of instruction, woven into a practical approach to learning English. I take pride in developing meaningful, contemporary lessons to make sure that students are well-engaged in the learning activities, as opposed to rote memorization and meaningless dialogues. I also emphasize ???survival??? English to ensure that students are equipped and prepared to deal with various issues and common situations they will encounter daily. Through my experience, I have found that practical, everyday lessons are more likely to be retained and fully understood by students, as they are likely to use this information frequently in their day-to-day activities. The practical nature of these lessons provides an immediate benefit to the students by better preparing them to cope with the various issues that they may face in life, and therefore reinforcing their classroom learning experiences.

I am willing to put in additional time and effort to help an individual student, including one-on-one instruction or additional material on a given subject or concept. Every student has his own unique learning style which needs to be understood and utilized by the instructor. With my wealth of teaching experience, I have developed many various teaching strategies to reach different students. I sincerely believe that every student is capable of learning, and my strong belief in this philosophy guides me in reinforcing students??? belief in themselves and their own capabilities.