Information About Sophie - Ratoath tutor

Personal Description:

Hi! My name is Sophie. I am currently studying English and German at Trinity College Dublin. I am a complete and utter linguaphile; I speak English, German, Portuguese and French. I am extremely enthusiastic about STEAM subjects, and study different branches of Physics in my free time. I also love photography, travel, books, going to the cinema, and bumping into cats!

Tutoring Experience:

My teaching experience is multifaceted. First and foremost is my own experience as a student: I achieved 625 points in the 2023 Leaving Certificate examinations, having studied English, Irish, Maths, German, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics. It is this background from which I draw my enthusiasm for and approach to teaching.
My professional teaching experience includes the following: firstly, my role as a STEAM Academy mentor, tutoring students in robotics and coding; my role as an English language teacher in summer camps in Austria and Germany; and previous experience providing grinds to second-level and third-level students.
In addition, I previously held a post as an outdoor activities instructor in the Dublin Mountains. I am accustomed to navigating issues, such as distractions and limited attention spans, that are frequently barriers to students garnering the optimum utility from their grinds.

Approach to Grinds:

My approach to grinds is a student-centred one. Students often find that the subject matter referred to in school is too vague and sweeping for them to grasp the most difficult concepts at hand. In German, this could be the particulars of grammatical cases and adjectival endings (notoriously challenging and yet hardly discussed on conventional curricula). In Chemistry, it could present as the complexities of organic molecule structures; in English, the unnecessarily convoluted approach taken by teachers to the comparative essay.
My role as a grinds teacher is to consult with my student and pinpoint the exact difficulties confronting them on their academic journey - the creases in their handiwork, so to speak. Over the course of the classes, these creases will be smoothed out by fostering the student's fundamental understanding of the task being set out. Many grinds teachers and schools make the mistake of teaching the examination, not the subject. The goal is not just to inform about the state examinations and success in this regard, but to promote an inherent, underlying comprehension for the student. It is only through this that they will walk into the exam hall in June with the confidence necessary to succeed.
For the STEM subjects of Maths, Physics, and Chemistry, classes may focus on individual exam questions or specific queries raised by the student. The same situation applies for Economics, though the provision of a wider economic view of the world is also promoted.
For English, given my current degree pathway, classes may focus on all facets of the curriculum: poetry (seen and unseen), single text, comparative, and Paper One content. I advise on the answering of exam questions, the analysis of various texts (and specific passages, for example soliloquies, which may present issue), and the writing of the multitude of essays that the paper demands of students.
Likewise, for German, I address all three core skills - reading, writing, and speaking. My German fluency has proven particularly useful in developing my students' oral skills in the past.