Take a lesson with a native English speaker! I help dedicated students and professionals improve their communication skills. I provide the experience and encouragement needed, by assisting students in the advancement of their studies, careers, travels, or just for the fun of it. : )
I began my online partnership with TakeLessons ™ in 2009. My teaching style is relaxed, offer project-based curriculum, tailored to best fit the student's needs and schedule when possible.
As a certified English teacher with a masters in curriculum and instruction, I ensure all my lessons are personalized for each student. Previously an elementary and secondary teacher, my concentration was helping students reach their full potential in the shortest amount of time in a crowded classroom. Now I am allowing online forums to allow my same students to relax and take in all the information through independent practice, modeling, and recall, but most importantly take an active role with chat rooms and their teams.
ESL/ELL STUDENTS
It's imperative that the student understands phonics as well as the parts of speech, i.e., nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, etc.
As an ESL teacher for over a decade, I develop individual curriculum that suits every occasion. I take pride in providing my students a project-based learning experience each lesson so that my students take on an active role in and outside my classes.
The study focuses on a specific aspect of language use, e.g., life skills, literacy, or vocational and workplace English competencies. Both approaches involve teaching students basic English skills, such as listening, reading, writing and speaking. Lessons are based on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and CPALMS ESOL (Florida State Standards K-12)
CLASSROOM/LESSONS
- Pronunciation techniques and tips
- Independent practice for the workplace
- Quizzes, textbooks, videos and computer lessons
- Basic communication with real-life interactions
- Personalized Google Doc
- Language in different situations, shopping, schooling, interview or the workplace with dialogue.
Classes place awareness on the students' culture and recognition of cultural differences which might affect a student's ability to acclimate to their English-speaking environment.
STUDENTS LESSON DETAILS
We discuss goals to determine interest, learning style, and objectives - together creating a lesson plan designed for the individual student.
TECHNOLOGY
Combination with TakeLessons Classroom and eLearning
Excerpt from "50 Ways to Teach Online: Tips for ESL/EFL Teachers" by Dr. Justin Shewell.
I take pride in having experienced teachers on staff and designing a product that will help students learn and acquire English, particularly for international communication.
Too often technology is designed without the control or voice of educators. Technology for technology's sake. We have tried to avoid this error and build an e-learning platform that puts pedagogy and learning first.
Here are the key aspects of my pedagogy:
1. Motivation.
We live in a visual and digital world. Students consume enormous amounts of video content and video has become the new textbook. EnglishCentral harnesses this built in, intrinsic level of motivation - why not learn English while viewing videos you love? EnglishCentral publishes 30 new video lessons per week and its vast library of video lessons and courses offers every student the chance to study what they want and listen to messages they want to hear.
2. Comprehensible Input
Not only do students need to listen to messages they want to hear - these messages must be level appropriate (Krashen, 2001). Each EnglishCentral video lesson or course plus our vocabulary is leveled and can be assigned to students based on their level of English. This provides appropriate practice maximizing language acquisition.
3. Precise, Timely Feedback
EnglishCentral provides instant feedback to students. Students begin to "notice the gap" (Schmidt, 1990) and begin to self-correct as they compare their speech to the original. Tools are provided so students can "dig down" and understand the language and get the answers they need immediately. EnglishCentral works to promote learner autonomy.
4. Lowered Affective Filter
Many students go through a substantial "silent period" (Krashen, 1985). Others need the time and space given through self-study before they are ready to excel in the very socially demanding classroom. EnglishCentral provides a safe, low anxiety environment where learners can proceed at their own pace and practice speaking in a non-threatening place. Teachers are often amazed how the quiet students in their class "bloom" on EnglishCentral.
5. An Oral Language Focus
The 21st century workplace and global nature of communication demands that students have strong speaking skills. The importance of written communication is receding. EnglishCentral's proprietary speech recognition system IntelliSpeech™ trains students to produce, clear, intelligible speech for effective communication across cultures and borders.
6. Blended Learning
The future of education lies in blended learning (Arne Duncan, 2014). EnglishCentral partners with schools and teachers offering a unique blended learning model and platform. Courses and video lessons can perfectly compliment what students learn in class, providing students with extra practice matching the class curriculum. Our free LMS lets teachers extend the curriculum and track student achievement.
7. Structured Learning
Our simple Watch | Learn | Speak methodology provides low cognitive overload and an easy to follow learning pathway. Courses and video lessons are leveled and vocabulary is presented with spaced-time repetition. EnglishCentral monitors every word or expression students study and provides a simple interface where students can use the feedback to improve their pronunciation and build their vocabulary.
8. Gaming
Students are highly engaged by the gaming dynamics of EnglishCentral. Students compete for XPs (Experience Points) and ranking through their study. However, we don't go overboard and aim to keep the focus on the learning, not the gaming.
9. Ambiguity Tolerance
Language is a vast and unpredictable space. Successful language learners are risk takers. Critical to being a risk taker is having a strong ability to not be stressed out by what you don't understand (Brown, 2007). EnglishCentral provides authentic content that challenges students to focus on the general meaning and gist and strengthen their level of ambiguity tolerance.
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