Personal Description:

I am a student before I am a teacher. It might not be something to brag about, but I learn something new or re-enforce old knowledge every class that I teach because I generally complete the same homework readings that I assign to students.

I began tutoring eight years ago as a way to improve my own knowledge of certain subjects and make some money doing it. My motivations have changed since I've started. I am working towards becoming a specialized English tutor. My goal is to help ESL students enrich their knowledge of this language and to help writing students to improve their ability to communicate on paper.

I am from an immigrant family (parents are Russian speakers) and have frequently worked and been in contact with people for whom English is not their first language. I may not understand how difficult it is to learn the language (I was never an ESL student), but I can definitely see the benefits of mastering it.

I find that tutoring ESL and writing to be fulfilling because of the avenues to personal expression and career growth that come from learning how to communicate well.

I have been self employed (see English Tutor Toronto for reviews and some information about myself) for a long time and creating and retaining a base of students that come back to me for regular classes is very important for me.

It is important that my students learn the language effectively.

Tutoring Experience:

My tutoring experiences have almost exclusively (same a short stint at a tutoring center for a few months) been with students I've found online across various websites similar to this one. I have created my own website and online presence (English Tutor Toronto), that you're encouraged to check out.

My best guess is that I have approximately 904 hours of tutoring experience across eight years (don't ask where these numbers come from :)), a large part of this experience has been with English (ESL, high school students, college students).

That's it! No teaching degrees and not a lot of experience, just a big need to find students and keep them happy. My longest tutoring commitments have been around 7-8 months, though students also come and go and don't ask for a second class as well. I've definitely had both failure and success!

Tutoring Approach:

I have three approaches to teaching English.

1) For students who want to learn to improve their speech: You speak, I time you. As you speak on a question of our mutual choosing, I type out and record everything you're saying so that you have a nice little transcript. Then we go through your errors, analyze them, and read about them: pronunciation (can I understand everything you're saying at the speed you're saying it at), effectiveness of answer (what content did your answer lack), vocabulary (are you using the correct vocabulary to express what you want to say), and most importantly grammar and sentence structure (is what you're saying correct according to the rules of the English language?). Students get transcripts of their work after every class and a list of readings specific to these errors.

2) Writing class: same as the speaking class! except you provide a piece of writing on a question and we look at punctuation as well. Writing classes are offered for anyone writing anything (native or non-native speakers alike) at any level.

3) Reading/Listening classes: These are far less frequent than the above two. But if you need practice with either of them, I provide samples of reading/listening from IELTS/TOEFL or some other source, and you answer questions. Again we identify and analyze your mistakes.