A bit about Sophia L

I am a London-based Oxford graduate with over 400 hours of tuition experience both online and in person tutoring Key Stage 3 Latin and French and French GCSE across Edexcel, AQA and Cambridge iGCSE, as well as AQA A Level and Latin OCR exams at GCSE and A Level. My working hours are highly flexible and I would be willing to approach the subjects from whichever angle one prefers; whether a student wants to practise his/her spoken French, learn Latin grammar only or simply needs help understanding the syllabus. Last year I helped a student predicted a 5 for French GCSE achieve an 8 in the final exam. I also boosted a Year 8's Latin language level from beginners' Latin to Year 11-style translation passages. Over the past three and a half years I have acquired over 400 hours of tuition experience in French, Latin and a bit of Italian and Russian. This has included tuition for both advanced learners and those struggling, sometimes on account of learning disabilities such as dyslexia and processing disorders (SEN). The pace of my lessons depends entirely on the preferences of every student: if exams are looming we can go at turbo-speed. But I am also happy to engage in a more leisurely approach should this be what's desired. All my homework is tailor-made after each lesson for every pupil. I take into account their progress, strengths and weaknesses. This is not the "one size fits all" approach too common in school; it determines every student's work on the basis of their experience. I keep tabs on what and how my students study and ensure their pace and progress fits their needs. In addition to French I also speak fluent Russian and intermediate level Italian. My penchant for making parallels between the languages ensures that lessons are not just productive but enlightening and entertaining for my students. My lessons for the language proceed for the most part like this: 1) I test the student on vocab and grammar they are expected to have learnt for that lesson. 2) Depending on the last topic covered, we either launch into a new subject or revise the previous one if it has not been fully understood. 3) We go over the written homework for this week. 4) For French we practise speaking (though this at times takes place at the beginning of the lesson), or translation sentences from English into French. For Latin we practise Latin-to-English translation. I started tutoring face-to-face in February 2019 and was at first reluctant to engage in online tuition. The pandemic forced me into it and I must say I'm very grateful that I finally committed to the medium. Online lessons actually help the student concentrate more: they must stare at a screen and type, and somehow this appears to get more done than in-person tuition a lot of the time. The moment when a student suddenly achieves an understanding of a parallel between French and English, French and Latin or another language - and abruptly realises the patterns all vernaculars must follow. Equally the moment when it starts to be apparent that the student is familiar enough with French or Latin to be able to consume it with less struggle and more independence. It varies a lot depending on the student at hand. I'm generally relatively informal and always welcoming. If a student doesn't do the homework or hasn't learn the vocab or grammar without a valid excuse, nonetheless, I can become quite strict in my attempt to rectify this. Transporting to my students the connection between languages and places; times and customs. A lot of students start out learning French or Latin with some kind of mistrust or suspicion: as though there's nothing there that will appear familiar to them. Eventually all of my students figure out that all our modern languages are kin and most of them descend from one family tree. That's a tremendous pleasure when at last it happens. My teaching philosophy would be drawing out a student's best. Sometimes this far exceeds the needs of the curriculum; sometimes it seems it will fall short of it. In either instance I make sure to give my student the occasion to accomplish the full scope of their potential. If I can see a student struggles with most topics but excels at learning vocab, I will make sure to sustain their confidence whilst frequently revisiting the hard-learned themes. I think the students find me quite accommodating and relatively easy to talk to. They can make jokes whilst understanding that serious work must be done. I have rarely had an impasse with a student where communication has been tough. The vast majority eventually open up and share their thoughts and struggles on a topic. My greatest success has been a Year 9 student whose school schedule wouldn't permit her to take Latin. She wanted to study it independently and together, in the course of a year, we got through the whole language section of the GCSE syllabus. Eventually the school found time to fit these lessons in so mine weren't needed. But she'll now be far ahead of her Year 10 classmates . 2:1 BA in Classics and Modern Languages (French) from the University of Oxford, 2015. Though it's not a qualification, the fact that I speak fluent Russian, intermediate Italian and some German has also helped me tutor. Many students love hearing comparisons between languages and information on the etymology of words. I've also had fun tutoring French grammar to a Belgian native who disliked it. All our lessons were conducted in French. My desire to convey the different parts of my linguistic knowledge to impressionable children interested in everything. I find that young people are more open when it comes to taking in new information. Because of this I love to help them not just ace exams but steadily absorb an understanding of the new and foreign. I haven't had much experience tutoring adults but would be happy to if the occasion arose. I'm a novelist and a classical music critic who recently created my own publishing imprint, The Crepuscular Press. When I don't tutor, I either write, research, promote or edit. More widely my interests are 19th- and 20th-century literature, 20th-century cinema, opera and music. I also love watching figure skating competitions and travelling. I teach French Cambridge iGCSE, AQA and Edexcel to GCSE students. I've also had experience teaching French AQA A Level and a great deal of Key Stage 3 French experience. In addition to these I teach the Latin OCR GCSE and A Level curricula, and have had experience preparing students for 13+ Common Entrance exams in both Latin and French. These have included both the Eton King's Scholarship and ISEB papers.