Information About Anna - Forest Hill teacher

Personal Description:

I am a recent first class modern languages graduate in Italian and Spanish from the University of Bristol. I love travelling and discovering new cultures. My favourite classes at university were about contemporary history where I was able to learn more about the societies, history, politics, and culture of the Italian and Hispanic worlds. I am especially interested in Colombian culture, where I spent one semester in my third year of university. The wide variety of landscapes, cuisine, music, dance, people and climates, all captured my interest and made my time in Colombia all the more enjoyable. I am passionate about languages; I took a class in Portuguese during university and am currently learning Vietnamese. I also love being creative, I enjoy fine art and sewing, but also digital forms of art. In fact, I was on the committee for the Exchange Society at the university of Bristol where I ran the social media, creating posts to broadcast our events and keeping everyone interacted. I also wrote for and designed the Italian and Hispanic university publications. These roles allowed me to engage in many of my interests simultaneously. I grew up speaking Italian and also lived in Turin as part of my studies in 2022. Furthermore, I completed a semester in Bogotá, Colombia in 2023 which vastly improved my oral Spanish skills.

Teaching Experience:

I have a wide variety of experience being around children, from tutoring to babysitting to volunteering at my university. I am currently volunteering with Action Tutoring as an English tutor for year 5 pupils. Through this charity I have been able to complete various training courses. I was also a student ambassador at my university where I spoke to A-Level students and held Q&A sessions about studying a language at university level, as well as assisting in language classes for year 8 students. I also helped on open days where I lead activities for A-Level students. As a university graduate who, thanks to my year abroad, has experienced higher education language teaching at three different universities and in three different countries, I have therefore been able to pick up on the most effective ways in which modern foreign languages can be taught. Throughout my degree, my language skills continuously developed and improved. I also studied both languages at GCSE and A-Level, and therefore I am familiar with these levels of language learning.

Teaching Approach:

I understand that children and teenagers' minds can wonder so it is imperative to keep them engaged with the material. I will make learning enjoyable but structured in a way that enables them to completely understand what is being taught. At GCSE and A Level it is essential to learn grammar correctly, however, I understand that it can be the least exciting part of language learning. For this reason, I am mindful of that fact that in order for grammar to be learnt effectively, it must be taught in a more interesting way. Moreover, it is essential to teach languages in a communicative manner which allows students to place their target language in a real life context which will not only help them to remember new things they learn, but will also make the language learning feel relevant and useful in their lives. These things include, being able to express their feelings, making requests, explaining things. It is also very valuable to learn how to explain concepts in the target language as this improves fluency by prompting the learner to think of a new way to say something, rather than being stuck on a word that they do not know how to say.