Information About Michael - Twickenham teacher -

(4 reviews)

Personal Description:

I am a linguist because of my first degree in Classics, and my Austrian family connections and the many summers spent in Austria, and the fact that I am using German all the time; as well as having had advantages in French in that three of my four teachers at school were French natives. Two of my sisters live in France and I am in that country for two stays in most years. I have made special study of French pronunciation which has special features because I am a classical singer. I have translated from these languages for book publishers.

Teaching Experience:

Secondary school experience as Latin, and Latin and Greek teacher.
Classroom exper. in Further Ed and sixth form teaching.
Secondary level vacation courses in Austria.
Private tutoring since my own student days.

Teaching Approach:

Somewhat Socratic in that I expect the pupil to make as much use as possible of what he DOES know, and then add to that.
I believe in going from the known to the unfnown, and using "word families" etc to progress by adding as if making a snowball,
It is essential to understand the nuts and bolts- to understand the mechanics and dynamics of language ie grammar and syntax (though I accept a lot can be done through going through thousands of models of language structures so that the brain eventually grasps the patterns/the structure without ever naming the parts as verb, noun etc)