Mr. James A

£25/hr

I've taught many students in several countries and now it's your turn!

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A bit about Mr. James A

Hello there! I am James. I have been an international teacher for about ten years, primarily teaching English, but also Maths and Science to students in several different countries. My educational background is scientific. I have a degree in Human Anatomy and Cell Biology and an HND in Software Engineering acquired from university. I am experienced at teaching all ages from 5 to 60, adults and children equally over the years. The adult students were looking for professional advancement, with the children aiming to pass their country's English examinations or GCSE's and hoping to gain UK qualifications in order to access higher education in the UK. Once I had the privilege of training two students verbal and non-verbal reasoning skills, as well as the science, maths and English in order to pass the test set by Harrow and Eton International in the Far East. Proudly, they passed the tests with flying colours and were invited to start the following term! When I was living abroad, I taught in five different schools as well as being a part time tutor in my spare time. Onsite corporate classes were also undertaken. One example being a Chinese paper mill machine manufacturer's engineers were unable to express the details and functionality of the equipment they wished to install in factories abroad and so hire me to train them to describe the technical functionality, maintenance and repair of their products in understandable English. This led to further ventures down this avenue. Currently, I am residing once again in the UK and believe this would be an excellent opportunity for me to share my knowledge and teaching experience with you to help you take those steps towards your or your child's dream careers. As well as the usual interests in reading, hiking, travelling and many more besides, I have recently embarked upon learning to play the Ukulele!

Teaching English as a foreign language: Most of my teaching experience comes from teaching students of all ages English as a foreign language and corporate specific language instruction and localisation. Oral English Comprehension and Grammar Spelling Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning training. *(With Grammar, I have developed the unusual ability to display grammar graphically, thus making the rules actually make sense rather than just rote learning). Science: My educational background was vigorously scientific, with a degree in Human Anatomy and Cell Biology and post graduate HND in Software Engineering. -Biology (up to A-Level, though I can certainly help biological science studying undergraduates) -Physics (up to A-Level) -Computer Science (fundamentals)

Introduction - The students and I greet each other. - 5 mins max - If not the first class, a quick recap of previous lessons to set the mind frame. - 5 mins max - introduce the topic title and what that title means - 10 mins - introduce the core terms and try to elicit examples from the students and also give them relevent examples - 10 mins - games or quiz to reinforce the information just given. The nature of such depends upon the ages/levels of the students. - 10 mins - Further exploration of the introduced terms and their relationships and contexts within the scope of the level, which includes showing/telling the students as well as encouraging them to share their new found and previously known information pertinent to the class. - 10 mins - games or quiz to reinforce the information just given according to the student level. - 5 mins - quick recap, going over the class - 5 mins - suggestions for further study before the next class. The suggestions depend on the age/level of the students.

I first starting tutoring as a "foreign expert" in China in a school called "New Star International" back in february 2010. The school was for Chinese students ages 5 to 12 years old. It was quite a rigorous introduction and required the management classes of up to 30 children, though most usually the classes had no more than 10 to 15 students. Originally, I had intended to return to the UK after one year but the experience was so awesome that I decided to remain in the misty, mystical China for much longer... After the New Star contract was completed, a new contract was gained at "Web International" which was purely focused on teaching professional adults English that they needed to further their careers or education. This was quite a different classroom experience in a new setting and one that was rather more serene. After a year or so, I started tutoring privately as more and more contacts were established. Over some time, this provided many opportunities to work on projects that were more specialised, such as for GCSE and A-level exam preparation and comprehension for students who aimed to qualify more surely for UK colleges and higher education. The teaching and education services eventually became far more diverse from corporate training or teaching soon to be international pilots English through to doctors wanting to comprehend western medical journals and textbooks for their work. Eventually, I even provided product localisation services so that Chinese manuals and games could be exported to western markets.

There are many aspects to teaching that I love. The primary satisfaction comes from seeing the student's knowledge and understanding grow and develop. That is really satisfying. Another aspect I love about teaching any subject, especially to those whose command of English is at beginner levels, is the need to deeply think about the subject oneself and figure out how to explain everything graphically. It forces one to deep dive into the relationships and contexts between things and thoroughly grasp the subject matter way beyond that of initially having learned the subject as a student oneself. This has led to more than a few epiphanies! It is also great fun to meet new people and communicate with them. Children are bundles of energy and new minds, whilst adults and their goals and motivations are fascinating in themselves. Children's classes are often busy and energetic whilst the adult classes are more serene. Though the opposite was also often true, too! I thoroughly enjoy teaching. The art and science of being a teacher provides me some of the most interesting work I have ever done - and I say that as someone who used to be employed by Sony on their PlayStation products!

I tend to adapt the style according to the student's personality and requirements. Some students prefer the quiet and formal approach, others prefer highly active and fun classes with many lesson specific game activities. The classroom set up also determined the manner of teaching. Some classrooms are like board room settings, more classrooms are like those typically found in schools, while others were just small rooms with a table and a pair or two of chairs and the occasional few were conference halls with hundreds of people facing me teaching from a large stage in front of them all. In each case, I would prefer to use a whiteboard and teach from that. The whiteboard is most essential to my form of teaching.

The best part of being a tutor is the deep diving and thought required to be able to explain the same things from several different perspectives in various different ways followed by the time spent talking about those favourite academic subjects with the students later in class. To be able to answer "why?" is deeply satisfying, especially when the student's eyes widen with sudden realisation as the fog of confusion evaporates and understanding deepens. There is some degree of freedom to be found choosing how many hours one is available, but regular consistency is very important, nonetheless. Meeting keen, new people is very nice, too. It is a privilege to assist them in achieving their goals.

My philosophy for teaching is primarily centred around enabling students to logically grasp the fundamental elements of things in order for them to better understand and appreciate what those things are and the relationships between those things and other things. Putting this in another way, everything is a thing made of things. I.e philosophically speaking, I take the approach of considering that everything or any thing is a formation comprised of in-formation. It is from this philosophical foundation that I break topics down into digestible pieces (information) with which the student can piece together their understanding of the things (formations) being studied in class. Encouraging the development of an effective, analytical mind in students in order for them to be able to learn how to dissect and analyse any subject or situation they will encounter is, I believe, a particularly useful and important life skill. A life skill that will help them throughout their life, as well as help them to more thoroughly master the subjects currently in hand. For example, a little while ago, during an English as a foreign language class on adjectives, my goal was to bring about awareness of some properties themselves that adjective words are used to indicate. So, I asked some students, “What does big mean?” They said, “large”, “bigger” and such. So, I asked, “big, small, huge and tiny, what are these words describing? What property are they expressing, colour? Loudness? Smell? Size?” They said, “size!” “Very good. What does “size” mean?” “How big something is.” They said. “Yes, but what is size?” “Er…” “Size basically means how much space something uses. Big means “uses much space”. Bigger means “uses more space than” and biggest means “uses the most space”. So, what does “small” mean?” “Small means “uses not much space!”” “Yes! That’s right! So, what does “smaller” mean?” as I pointed at the “bigger” example on the board. “Smaller means “uses less space than” and smallest means “uses the least space”. “Very good! So, let’s think of something big. The Earth. Why does the Earth have size?” “The Earth has size because it is using space!” “Very good!” “Why is the Earth bigger than us?” “It’s bigger than us because it uses more space than us” “Yes! And where is the Earth?” “In space!” “Yes!” and so I gave the students a high five. “So, when we are saying, big, small, tiny, huge we are pointing out something’s size, how much space it uses So, what other size words are there?” etc. To stimulate the students’ minds in an effective, encouraging, engaging way, in a comfortable, safe and fun environment is of paramount importance to me. It doesn’t matter whether the subject is science, mathematics, or English grammar. The approach is fundamentally the same: - Getting the students to understand the shape of things by first identifying and then studying the informative details so that the students can figure those subjects out for themselves as

I've been told that I am quite an animated teacher whose mannerisms are very expressive. This, I think, is largely due to my personal engagement in the subject matter and keenness to convey my knowledge. However, it is also important to reflect the manner of the students in my classes so as avoid incongruence and ensure that the student feels comfortable and engaged. Students enjoy the fresh perspectives I bring to subjects as it helps them to dissolve hitherto impenetrable barriers to their understanding of sometimes tricky and abstract subject matters. Some things just don't make sense or are invisible to the student until their angle of approach is altered. I liken it to looking a playing card. From one angle, edge on, the student can barely see it. But from another angle, face on, more information is visible and thus the same card is more discernible and so is more easily understood. One point that East Asian students liked about my English teaching style is my use of drawing timeframes to explain grammar and tenses whereas their books and teachers more commonly use timelines. The way this is done can only be demonstrated. There is an intriguing degree of geometric, mathematical logic to correct English that is commonly overlooked. But it's there... When learning to teach English ten years ago, I just applied my scientific analytical skills to English and had a number of useful, testable epiphanies that I have since used to increase my student's comprehension which have often been appreciated. Let me show you a quick example, by teaching the East Asian students to identify all the information being conveyed in the phrase, "She's happy" I thus had increased their comprehension of the phrase. This helped them to identify when tenses other grammar structures were congruent. "As we can tell, the present time has that female. That female has happiness" “Happiness belongs to that female. That female belongs to the present time" These things take too much needless time to say, hence the use of pronouns, adjectives and tensed verbs to convey these details far more efficiently. Thus, the above is more usually conveyed as, "She's happy" I’m using teaching English as an example, yet my background is much more scientific and use a similar "exploded diagram" system to describe concepts in physics and biology.

I have had many successes teaching. Teaching and living abroad has broadened my horizons and increased my skill sets considerably. I have had school age students successfully passing their required examinations to go into further education, not only in their own countries, but also enabled them to qualify for courses in the UK, North America and Australia. Perhaps the most noticeable successes come from actually teaching students to read English. When I start with a class or private student with no prior knowledge, and then at the end of the year, listening and watching them speak and read English is very gratifying indeed. In 2018, as well as teaching middle school level English, science and mathematics, I had also prepared two Chinese students in China for the Verbal and Non-verbal Reasoning entrance examinations required for entry into Harrow International School in Bangkok. Both students passed the tests! Not only that, just a week before flying to Bangkok with the family, I had taught the two students details of the human digestive system and the human skeleton. Upon touring the school, one of my students told me that a teacher at the school had asked him a question about digestion in English and he was able to answer it, remembering the class I had taught him. That was pretty awesome. Chinese students are not often accepted by that school because their English language science level is rarely up to standard. But both of my students were given an offer. (To be fair, they were clever students, but they'd told me I was their best teacher! I'd even taught them how to solve the 3x3 and 4x4 Rubik's Cube. A week or so after teaching them, one of students told me that his classmate in his Chinese school had had their cube scrambled by a naughty child. My student was able to quickly re-solve his classmate's cube, stopping his classmate from crying and made himself look clever in front of his class. That was cool.) There have been many student and professional successes over the years, though. Sometimes a highly successful individual would hire me to be their personal English tutor to assist them with their business requirements. After some time, the professional student would later reveal that really, they were seeking a tutor for their children and were just assessing me by their own experience being tutored by me. They would then continue to hire me to home tutor their children, too! Tutoring professional students also led to me being hired by the companies they worked for or owned in order to teach job-relevant English. Once I taught a doctor (head of department cardiologist) who then put me forward to his colleagues. I acquired several students in this manner when I was living and teaching abroad.

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Teaches

Subject	Level	Rate
Maths Level Primary	Primary	£25/hr
Maths Level KS3	KS3	£25/hr
Maths Level IB	IB	£25/hr
English Level Primary	Primary	£25/hr
English Level KS3	KS3	£25/hr
English Level IB	IB	£25/hr
English Level GCSE	GCSE	£25/hr
Science Level KS3	KS3	£25/hr
Biology Level GCSE	GCSE	£25/hr
Biology Level A-Level	A-Level	£25/hr
Physics Level GCSE	GCSE	£25/hr
English as a Foreign Language EFL Level EFL	EFL	£25/hr

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