Learning English with Olga

My Interests

My Other Experiences and Background

Me as a Teacher:

I am a perfect teacher for you if you are a kinesthetic and visual learner. Do you think that you learn the skill better if you take notice of real-life examples? Do you love experimenting with everything in life, for example trying new recipes, and discovering how things work through trial and error? Do you like to focus on a practical application of what you’ve learned? During our trial lesson, I will give you a VARK test to identify your predominant learning style.

I am best at teaching adult students of pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate levels.

It’s really important for me to get to know you because I want to make sure that the materials I provide are relevant to you and your life. A trial lesson will help us to see if we are gonna be the best fit. I truly believe in the benefits of a meaningful connection between a teacher and a student which evokes personal experience.

My lessons & teaching style:

I enjoy taking a very personalised approach with each of my students to meet their needs and expectations for learning English. I will prepare/create activities for you based on your needs and goals, and that are relevant to your life.

In my lessons, I use a flipped learning methodology that enables active learning during class time. In this approach, the conventional educational process is reversed so that you do your homework and prepare the material before going to class. I will send the materials (usually a video or an article) to watch or read before class. In class, we work through that material and do activities related to it.

Also, during my classes, I use a communicative approach that enables students to talk as much as possible so they particularly improve their speaking skills.

I put a lot of emphasis on the amount of practice in our lessons, especially spoken practice. Practice helps the new knowledge that you acquired to sink in, so it doesn’t go in one ear and out the other. I find it extremely important to spend no more than 20% of the lesson to present new knowledge, while 80% should be spent on pure practice. Activities should have a practical application and after completing it you should be able to produce something in the target language.

I find learning chunks of information and phrases in context more effective, instead of individual words.

The end of the lesson will be dedicated to your feedback and self-reflection. I want to see which activities you liked and which were helpful, what worked and what didn’t. This will help to customise the lessons and produce better results for you in the long-term.

We will keep track of everything that we work on in this lesson in a personalised google document for you.

About me:

I am a TESOL qualified teacher of English from New Zealand. I have been teaching English since 2018 and I hold a graduate diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) from Waikato Institute of Technology, New Zealand.

Originally from Russia, I now reside in New Zealand. I have been living here since 2013. I got married in New Zealand, we’ve got a beautiful little boy who is currently one and a half years old.

I love nature a lot, I prefer places untouched by humans, or built and run with environmental sustainability in mind. I believe it is very important to take care of nature and our planet.
I love the outdoors.

My life is all about expanding my self-awareness and self-development. And I achieve that through writing a journal, practising mindfulness and living a healthy lifestyle.

Amongst my other interests are a home organisation, wholefood vegetarian cooking and dancing. And most recently, I got passionate about natural parenting, gentle and respectful early childhood education and care.

Have taken IELTS exams, both Academic and General.