About Me

I attained my B.A. in French from Texas A&M University, where I studied abroad in Normandy, France for a year to enhance my cultural and linguistic knowledge. After coming back from France, I taught the language labs for French 101, where our goal was to practice the vocabulary learned in class and gain confidence using French. I then moved to Houston and received my M.A. in Linguistics from Rice University, where I researched speech acoustics and perception. Additionally, I was Teaching Assistant for the Intro to Linguistics and Phonetics classes, where I graded papers and answered students questions, occasionally even lecturing. After grad school, I taught English as a second language to adults, while at the same time continuing to tutor languages. At this time, I began to add other subjects to my teaching experience, including writing, pronunciation, listening and speaking, Spanish, SAT, GRE Verbal, GMAT, IELTS, TOEFL, and piano. My favorite subjects to tutor are language classes. My tutoring style can be characterized as patient and interactive; While Im confident that the content that I communicate benefits, feedback from the student is an integral part of my teaching. I believe that if the student can be communicative about what they do and do not understand, it will not only help me as the tutor, but more importantly, this will inform the students understanding of their own learning processes and where they are on their journey of learning. This concept of being self-aware in the learning process is central to my teaching style. When I am not tutoring, teaching, or helping others increase their communication skills, I can be found playing piano and saxophone around town with some bands, being upside down while practicing Acroyoga, biking around with friends, or playing with my dog.

Education & Certifications

Q&A with John

Tutoring Subjects