Hello, my name is Jackie Smith and I'm 65 years old and currently living in Greece. I am a native English speaker and teach Greek. I have been an online Greek teacher with Verbalplanet since March 2008.
I can speak the following languages fluently: English, Greek.
I am currently offering a free initial trial lesson for new students.
My Latest Feedback
25 Aug 2020
Marc K
My 10 year old son has been taking lessons with Ms. Jackie for about a year. He has grown a lot in his language skills and enjoys his meetings with Ms. Jackie. She is an excellent tutor and we are grateful for her instruction.
28 Jul 2020
Kerykion
I have been studying Greek regularly with Jackie for several months and the lessons have been both extremely enjoyable and fruitful. Jackie's passion for Greek, understanding of languages in general and teaching style make lessons fun and accessible. The course, designed by Jackie herself with great thoroughness and imagination, is easy to grasp and follow. Her innovative use of images means that vocabulary is absorbed easily and naturally and lends itself to online learning. Learning Greek with a teacher who has, herself, come to it as a foreign language and mastered it to a high level has much to recommend it: Jackie has first hand experience of the challenges involved and great suggestions for dealing with them. Highly recommended!
26 May 2020
NeilHC
I've just finished the first full beginners course with Jackie and it has been really logical and easy to follow. Jackie is a great teacher, the work books she emails to me are very clear and I'm now starting Book 2, having learned the alphabet, with lots of useful phrases and words and grammar to get by on holiday. I really like having the material there on my computer and being able to pick the lessons up and put them down at a speed that suits me.
04 Mar 2020
Pauline S
Thank you Jackie for another great lesson. I cant believe that I'm only on my second lesson & I can actually read & pronounce words written in Greek!!
28 Feb 2020
Pauline S
Great first lesson with Jackie. She makes learning fun
21 Feb 2020
NeilHC
Jackie instantly helped to find out what I knew, and what I want to know, then quickly started. The clearly set out guide material that she prepared and forwarded to me beforehand is really easy to use. A very easy introduction to a language about which I knew little.
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.
Qualifications & Experience
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 Approach
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.
