americanistanbul

My name is Beckie, and I am an American English teacher giving private English lessons in Istanbul! I teach students of all ages, all levels, and all backgrounds. In addition to being a native speaker, I have a fantastic education and almost 10 years of experience teaching languages in the USA, China, and Turkey. I have a BA in International Relations and East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and a University of Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) from the Teaching House, Boston. I teach business English, general English, and academic English in private lessons. Business English lessons focus on English skills for communication, socialization, presentation and negotiation. General English lessons focus on the students specific needs and target goals for improvement in listening, speaking, pronunciation, writing, vocabulary and reading. Students use authentic material and creative activities. For example, students listen to podcasts and radio stations, watch TED talks and film clips, write e-mails and memos, record telephone conversations, and read books for class. Students say my lessons are fun, creative, and useful. As a teacher, my strengths include adapting lessons for visual, audio, and kinesthetic learning styles. I guarantee student participation as I aim to limit my talking and instructional time to a minimum of 5% of each lesson. I ask concept check questions and instruction check questions so students of all levels always understand and follow. I correct mistakes for both fluency and accuracy. During the speaking task, I carefully listen and write down the student's speech without interruption. This gives fluency practice. Pronunciation mistakes may be gently corrected immediately as long as the correction does not interrupt the flow of thought. Then, the student can read his or her own sentences to try to find any mistakes. I may also ask questions to give the students clues about where to find the mistakes. The most patient teachers know that taking the time to grow a student's self-awareness early on ultimately speeds up the learning process. Lessons also include learning strategy for short and long-term memory retention.