Information About Jiajia - Berkeley teacher

Personal Description:

Hi, I am a teacher with more than 15 years of English language teaching.

I believe anyone can learn a foreign language at any time of their life, and language can be learnt and taught in a very fun way. Now I have moved to the UK with my English husband and our 7 year old daughter. We live in Berkeley, Glourcestershire. The mixed marriage is an advantage for me to understand the two languages and their culture from a unique angle.

Teaching Experience:

I started teaching English in various training schools in China when I was a college student majoring in English in 2000. Then another two years full time teaching in a training school before I did my master's degree in Applied Linguistics in Cardiff University, in 2004. After that I taught English in the Foreign Language School in Ningbo University of Technology in China for more than 12 years. In 2016 I started my own language learning studio teaching various students for different purposes, including IELTS and pre IELTS courses for secondary school students, everyday English for adults, business writing courses, and academic writing for those who have started studying in universities in the UK. I've been teaching people from primary school children to adults much older than me.

Teaching Approach:

I use quite a lot of different textbooks published by Cambridge University Press. Also I compose my own teaching material. For the purpose of everyday English, I've written a 12 -episode short story introducing English language and culture to my students. When I teach academic English, I use a lot of newspaper articles and semi- academic articles from website such as the Conversation.com. My own learning experience made me well understand the difficulties of Chinese students when they start in an English Medium university, especially in terms of critical thinking and constructing a plausible argument.