Flavio

Certified Tutor

Coming from a multi-lingual background and education (French/Italian/Arabic/English), I am a graduate of French and Arabic with a post-graduate diploma in Arabic-English translation studies. I started my career teaching Arabic for beginners, then French and Arabic simultaneous interpreting followed by a spell teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Middle East. I then moved to working in educational publishing for many years part of which were spent based again in the Middle East where I used both my French (in Lebanon and Maghreb countries) and my Arabic (in the rest of the region). The running thread throughout my career has been education and languages both of which I have retained an enduring passion for. Now that I am partly retired and have more time on my hands, I feel that I still have the energy, interest and motivation to return to my passion for teaching languages. I have always felt strongly that learning languages not only opens up real life opportunities but also broadens the mind and breaks down barriers between cultures and world outlooks. At a time when English is more and more widely spoken as a second language throughout the world, learning and practising a foreign language other than English is becoming more challenging than ever, given that people often give up with you and respond in broken English. Luckily, people do also appreciate it when you make an effort and persevere regardless. This is what I like to encourage my students to do, and the more they do, the more rewards they will reap.