I'm an English teacher from Ireland with a lot of experience in different cultures around the world. I lived in South Africa for a number of years before moving to Ireland as most of my family are Irish, but I'v also lived in Australia, Spain and now Taiwan for roughly two years in each country. I like learning about language and how people develop fluency in several languages, and I like learning about different cultures as well as studying the industries and professions in which my students work. After teaching English to students from Japan, Brazil, Russia, Spain, France, Germany, South Korea etc for many years, I have learned a lot about the histories and cultures of their countries, as well as the economic and business environments. It's been immensely interesting and has helped me to provide customized lessons for my students based on their specifics needs and work/life situations.

A few years ago I was teaching English to mostly kids while working Spain, but then I decided to go travelling around the world teaching adults working professionals using Skype, so that I could make more use of my engineering degree and combine it with English teaching. I was motivated to start teaching English this way because of the amount of knowledge of different cultures and industries/professions that I was able to gain from teaching these lessons. I also like to study language/linguistics etc so that I can use effective methods to help students reach a higher level of fluency with real, solid methods that work.

Experience

English Online Course Instructor

2017 - present, Taipei, Taiwan

At the moment I'm in the process of creating online video courses based on English learning. I have already created a 2hr + course which talks about skills methods that students can use to build their English fluency. In the near future I plan to make more courses about grammar study, pronunciation and some English vocabulary courses.

Professional Online English Teacher

2015 - present, Taipei, Taiwan

Since 2015 I have been working as an online English teacher. I have really become focused on finding the best possible methods for achieving fluency in a second language by studying polyglot methods, researching linguistics etc. And I like to promote these methods to my students, putting them through the same natural language learning processes which actually result in more fluency. I work with a lot of working professionals, as well as students who just want to improve their general English.

English Teacher, English In Action

2014 - 2015, Madrid Spain

I taught students of varying ages: one group of kids (7/8 years old), three groups of adolescents (10/11 years old), two groups of adults (elementary), and a number of adult one-to-one adult classes.

The classes focused on communicating in English with attention to grammar as it came up. We used an interactive whiteboard with English learning software that was a representation of the student book and work book. I supplement this with my own material.

English Teacher, English In Action

2013 - 2014, Madrid Spain

I taught students ranging in ages from 5–11 years old. The class sizes were typically 8-10 students each. We covered listening, reading, writing and speaking with most of the emphasis on verbal communication. Material was provided by the academy, using an interactive whiteboard and pupils' books. During the year, I also taught many one-to-one classes with teenagers and adults, the emphasis being on conversational fluency.

Qualifications

Cork Institute of Technology, Rep. of Ireland, 2005 - 2009

Bachelor's - Mechanical Engineering

Certificate in TESOL Intesol Worldwide 2015

General English:

The idea is to have really engaging and interesting conversations about general topics while I offer feedback and corrections on students' pronunciation, grammar etc. The idea is to get students talking as much as possible for the lesson while I keep the conversation going. Topics would include travel, movies, culture, history, food, technology etc. Basically any topic that the student has a strong interest in, and we can both suggest topics to work on. I try to suggest as much natural language as possible during the discussion and take down these notes for the student to look back on. The student's homework would be to study an article or documentary before the class (building passive vocabulary) and then during the class my job would be to get the student talking about the topic and ideas as much as possible (activating/using the vocabulary) while I focus on strong correction. So homework is always preparation *before* the class. I also focus separately on grammar and study pronunciation in detail. If necessary I record the audio for the classes and send it to the student after.

I also get my students to read articles aloud during class so I can correct their pronunciation, and after reading the paragraph and looking at difficult language points, I normally get students to explain (from memory) what the paragraph was about in their own words while attempting to use as much of the new interesting vocabulary from the paragraph as possible. This is a great memory exercise and it allows students to start using new words straight away.

I also watch and listen to videos during class together with the student using screen sharing in Skype so I can test their listening comprehension, and we can discover new vocabulary and expressions and talk about the ideas of the content.

Career English:

We would use the same methods as above, but focus on material related to the student's work (articles, interviews, documentaries etc). Any material that contains the vocabulary that the student needs for their work. I also do some interview preparation, simulate an IELTS speaking exam environment, or just practice the IELTS questions in a freestyle way. But to mix things up, we still have general English discussions to have a break from all the detailed career talk.