Jackie Smith : Greek

Yia sas, my name is Jackie and I was born in London. I have been living in Kefalonia, one of the Ionian Islands, since 1997 and have two grown up daughters who both now live in North America. I came to Greece to learn Greek and fell in love with the language and the culture. At that time there was no one teaching Greek so with book in hand and sheer determination my Greek grew and blossomed.

As a qualified TEFL teacher I was teaching English to Greek children then around 2005 I started teaching Greek to English people here and a couple of years later progressed to teaching on the internet using Skype.

Teaching private lessons allows me to work with my students at their own pace. As a native English speaker who has learned Greek, I believe my approach to teaching and the material I use for my lessons is unique as it has been inspired by my own journey to fluency. I’m only too well aware of which aspects of the language my students are likely to find difficult because I too have been there.

For those who want a comprehensive understanding of how the Greek language works I use my own material alongside a conventional textbook as it gives me the opportunity to explain some of the more difficult to grasp points of Greek grammar. Because I had to make sense of all this for myself, I strive to put the points across in a way that is more understandable and easier to study. I believe it is important to learn to read and write as well as speak and listen and so I teach all the four skills.

For those who are not excited by Greek grammar and just want to learn conversational Greek, I have developed a compilation of lessons, designed specifically for you. Through dialogue and speech the lessons enable you to build ever more complex sentence structures and covers all the grammar necessary to be able to create your own conversations.

Most importantly of all I like to make my lessons fun and interesting. I incorporate information about the Greek way of life and customs into my lessons and work hard to make the lessons enjoyable. I know that the biggest barrier to learning a new language is the loss of motivation so I want my students to look forward to each lesson and to feel motivated to continue to learn the language that I love.

So, whether you want to be able to chat to locals whilst on holiday, have relatives in Greece you want to connect to or you simply love the challenge of learning a new language, I believe I will have something to offer you.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like to find out more about how I teach Greek.