Samantha - Epsom tutor
Information About Samantha:
Personal Description:
I have studied Mandarin Chinese for past four years at university, including one year spent living in Hangzhou, China, and have continued studying in my freetime over the past year since graduating. I have recently decided to continue my education, and have been accepted at SOAS University in London.
Teaching Experience:
During my undergraduate degree I would help classmates to grasp a better understanding of Chinese grammar after class, particularly with features such as BA and BEI structures.
During my year abroad in Hangzhou, China, I briefly tutored children at a school called English Alive, which focused on children from 2-11 years old.
As well as tutoring children, I would often tutor other students who were learning English and Chinese at the same time, and help them with proof reading and spell checking.
At the beginning of 2019 I began tutoring outside of university. One student was a Chinese lady learning English, and the other was an English lady undertaking a Chinese course on the Open University. I can proudly say that both have improved, and on the official course my student earned a 1st.
Tutoring Approach:
My classes will be entirely focused on the needs, goals and capabilities of the student. Before lessons start, I like to correspond with my students to know exactly what they want without using the paid-for lesson time. The main factors I would want to determine would be the number of classes per week, the skillset priorities (speaking and listening, reading and writing, or all equally), and to what level my students would hope to study.
I would provide the textbooks and have plenty of resources to recommend to my students for further study.
My classes are usually an hour long. We tend to start with reviewing the previous lesson's key points and homework, before moving onto vocabulary development, often with flashcards. We then move onto grammar, where two-three grammar points are introduced depending on the level of difficulty. We then review a passage written in Chinese characters, pinyin, and English; any unfamiliar words are highlighted and noted, and the learned grammar points are explained thoroughly in the context of the story/passage. We then practice reading and pronounciation by reading out the passage.
At the end of the lesson we have listening practice in the form of funny, relevant videos spoken in slow, clearly spoken Chinese.
The unfamiliar characters are listed, and given to the student for homework, which is usually something along the lines of "create a sentence using each word. One unfamiliar word per sentence."
Games are included, as are movies, tv shows, cartoons, etc.
Subjects Taught:
Qualifications:
- 2:1 undergraduate degree Asia Pacific Studies with Mandarin
- HSK 3
- HSKK
Further Information:
Availability: | Weekends / Weekdays (evenings) |
Types of Tutoring: | Travels to you / From their home |
References Supplied? | Yes |
Additional Languages Spoken: | Mandarin |