Lara

I am an highly qualified teacher who has been tutoring and teaching for 24 years. I studied and worked in Italy and France, then I took a British degree and have been working in UK as an online and in-person tutor both successfully preparing students to exams and tutoring adults wishing to learn or improve their skills in my subjects, blending one-to-one sessions and group courses.
My teaching and tutoring experience is extremely rich and varied and unfolded in different learning contexts, including Independent and State schools, language schools , Adult and Further Education. This has given me a lot of flexibility in my tutoring strategies and the capability of creating effective tailor-made sessions.
I will give you a detailed account of my qualifications and teaching career and I would be glad if you could read my BIO entirely. However, if it is not possible, feel free to consider the aspects that are of interest to you while reading and referring to my EXPERIENCE and my APPROACH.

Please note that:
I hold an updated DBS
* I can send my CV on demand for further details, after the first session
*** I am also available for small online groups

I would be very glad to offer you my enthusiasm in tutoring as well as my long experience , so send me a message to chat and arrange a session together.

Tutoring Experience

MY TEACHING EXPERIENCE

1) FRANCE 1999-2011
I lived and worked in France for 12 years and there I acquired a broad teaching and tutoring experience.
I taught in French COLLEGES et LYCEES, that is French Secondary Schools, both in Independent and in State schools. Adult and Further education
were also a successful and rewarding part of my career.
In France, I collaborated with some important language schools like Demos Langues, which gave me the opportunity to train managers of companies like Thales , formerly Thompson.
I could also start a very fruitful tutoring experience thanks to agencies like Acadomia in Paris and Cours Pythagore in Montpellier. Such a collaboration
implied also helping students in Italian and Latin university studies.
Along with my exciting tutoring and teaching activities, I translated a wide range of documents from French into Italian, Italian into French and From Latin into French.

2)ITALY 2011-2014
I graduated in Italy and later, between 2011 and 2014, I worked there as a freelance French, Italian and Classics tutor assisting
students of Secondary school as well as adults whose needs were quite different.
In addition to my tutoring activities, I worked as a freelance translator.

3)UK 2014-Present
In UK I have sensibly improved, enlarged and updated my teaching skills by preparing students for the exams and coping with adult learning in different kinds of situations.
Working with language schools like Cactus Language as a French and Italian teacher allowed me to train clients of prestigious companies and international
law firms, both for General and Business Italian and French Courses. Sanofi Aventis, Marks and Spencer, Procter and Gamble, Monsoon, News UK, Rugby Players Association,
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are some of the companies I could successfully offer one-to-one sessions as well as group classes. Collaborating with Cactus and Ealing School of Languages (Adult education) offered the fruitful opportunity to improve my teaching groups skills.

My collaboration with some tutoring agencies like Removed is going on very profitably and has given me the opportunity to lead my students towards high achievements, while preparing
them for exams or simply supporting them through sessions aimed at revising some aspects of the four subjects that I have been teaching for such a long time.
Although the pandemic was hard to deal with for both students and tutors, I accompanied my students through the difficulties that they could experience during such a difficult time.

Tutoring Approach

My studying and working in three different countries has certainly contributed to make my experience richer, allowing me to perfect some teaching skills that have turned to be paramount.

1. SECONDARY SCHOOL and EXAM PREPARATION SUBJECTS = French , Italian, Latin and Classical Greek EXAMS= Common Entrance 13+ - GCSE and IGCSE - A Level and IB

When it comes to helping students who need to sit an exam, I always keep in mind two fundamental aspects that are at stake: both the thorough knowledge and awareness of what the exam boards require and the thorough knowledge of the personal learning style of my students . Thanks to my long and successful experience, I have become perfectly able to combine both.

Concerning my teaching practice , I am capable of
identifying students' needs , building effective schemes of work and session plans, delivering exciting and interactive
lessons, preparing formal and informal assessments, monitoring both their difficulties and progress.
Giving sincere and, at the same time, encouraging feedback both to the students and to their families is something I particularly care for .
Liaising constantly with families is effectively an extremely important part of my professional activity so the families can receive feedback at the end of each session, by email or
a monthly document of feedback to have more technical details on progress and needs of the students.
Being perfectly familiar with exams syllabuses and exam boards grading systems, I carefully plan timely mock assessments, in addition to those planned at school (if a student does not study my subjects at school, which may be the case of Latin and Classical Greek, I prepare additional mock assessments) and work with my students on past papers, encouraging them to fully analyze assessment criteria and examiner reports.
When my students prepare more than a subjects and these subjects present similarities in terms of vocabulary, grammar and syntax, I encourage them to make comparisons, which is generally greatly appreciated by them , in addition to being a powerful intellectual stimulus.
Then, last but not least, managing stress , encouraging warmly but without any form of flattery, pushing learners to give their best by respecting their personality, helping them to develop self assessment learning practices in the course of time, these are no less important areas of my tutoring than the aforementioned ones.

1. ADULT and FURTHER EDUCATION - CORPORATE TRAINING- PREPARING FRENCH DELF and DALF - PREPARING ITALIAN CILS, CELI and PLIDA

As per my teaching methods in contexts that are not finalized to exam preparation, I am able to create tailor-made sessions, whose structure depends on learners' objectives.
Therefore tools and methods are extremely varied and can change according to progress and changes in the way a student can learn a subject.
I have an open minded and a flexible approach when it comes to meeting student's needs and expectations.
I have been also successfully combining and simultaneously teaching Italian and French together while tutoring students who want to learn both, which has led me to create experimental course materials.

My sessions are interactive and based on a blend of reading, speaking, listening and writing tasks and , when required, the civilization and history . Business French and Italian are two exciting areas of my teaching practice too.
I have been also successfully tutoring learners whose only request is making conversation in order to become fluent in French or Italian.
Besides, I am reliable, punctual and capable of meeting deadlines and generally send by email the documents to work on some days ahead of the session so that a student can get a deeper knowledge of what we will cover.
Sometimes I suggest some students take a VARK test in order to know their learning style, although it remains at their convenience.
* As per the preparation of French and Italian exams,

tutoring activities like assessing needs and difficulties, monitoring progress, planning timely mock assessments, working on the four papers, giving constant feedback and encouraging to self assessment are as essential as they are when it comes to Secondary school students' exam preparation.