Information About Rosalind - Bath teacher

Personal Description:

Hello! I’m Ros. I started learning languages at school where I grew up in Shropshire, and spent my gap year in Paris working as an au pair for three kids under the age of ten. In 2011 I began studying French and Italian at the University of Edinburgh, spending my year abroad in rural Sicily teaching English in a middle school, and I graduated in 2015 with a first class honours degree, with distinctions in spoken French and Italian. Since then I’ve been pursuing my career as an actor-musician in the world of new theatre in London, all the while working as a presenter in schools across the South-East of England for Elevate Education, leading workshops to help GCSE and A-level students get through their exams. When Covid-19 struck I was on tour performing in Once The Musical, and have spent lockdown in Cirencester, keen to offer language tuition to those who find themselves out of either school or work and wanting to get good! In my spare time I enjoy getting outdoors, painting, reading and learning new things. I am a happy and approachable kind of person who takes pleasure in doing things well!

Teaching Experience:

My experience of teaching began when I was at school, as work experience: during my time in sixth form I spent a year volunteering weekly at a local primary school as a classroom assistant, and subsequently spent a fortnight in the summer of 2010 working in another school in the same role, furthering my interest in teaching. Things got interesting when I landed a fortnight’s work experience in a language centre where I gained invaluable experience of teaching English to foreign businessmen. This set me up perfectly for my year abroad in Sicily as part of my degree. I secured a paid position with the job title of English Language Assistant, through a scheme run by the British Council. The role entailed giving one-to-one extra help with the children, whilst offering clarifications of idiom and pronunciation alongside the teacher, and leading group activities to bolster their knowledge. During this time in the small town of Pachino on the South-East coast of Sicily, I also took on some private pupils: a group of three 7 year olds; two mothers at the school wishing to refresh their English; and two teenaged siblings who wanted extra speaking practice outside of their lessons at school. This private tutoring was hugely enjoyable, and led to taking on more such private language tutoring once back in Edinburgh for my final year at university. Later, becoming a presenter in schools for Elevate Education’s study skills workshops led to four years of incredibly fulfilling work- I'd lead interactive one off presentations either with a small class or with groups of up to 300 teenagers to engage and enthuse them in their learning and revising during the toughest years of school. Working with so many kids of differing ages, abilities and backgrounds has given me a brand new perspective on teaching that I bring into my private tutoring work with full gusto, where flexibility and positivity are key to an effective teacher/learner relationship.

Teaching Approach:

My approach to teaching is largely based on my awareness of how daunting it can be to communicate in a language not one's own. I understand the difficulty and potential embarrassment in attempting the often challenging accent of another language, and so I endeavour always to put my pupils at ease and to help them discover the fun in really going for it. To me, languages are a code to be cracked, and though many people believe themselves incapable of doing this, I believe that anyone, at their own pace, can learn to put together the puzzle that is a foreign language.