Meet Jeremy
English instructor.
Originally from the Midlands in the UK, Jeremy has spent most of his adult life abroad. He has lived and worked in Athens, New York and Vermont (New England), where he has helped hundreds of people with their language and communication skills. Jeremy has 20 years of teaching experience and he is fluent in Greek. Today Jeremy shares with us valuable tips on learning a new language and how to survive your IELTS and TOEFL exams.
Question. Jeremy, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Answer. I am an EFL / ESL (English as a Foreign Language / English as a Second Language) instructor with an Honours degree in English Literature and 20 years of teaching experience. I grew up in a small town in the Midlands of the UK, but I have spent most of my adult life abroad. My first move, in 1993, was to Greece where I lived and worked for 15 years. In 2008, I moved to New York City where I spent 2 years before moving to the quiet state of Vermont in New England where I have been living for the past 5 years. Since 2012, I have been working as an online English language instructor and a Greek to English translator. When I’m not working, I love reading, music and outdoor sports.
Q. Why did you choose to become a teacher and what do you enjoy the most about it?
A. In the early nineties, I decided that I wanted to try living abroad and, in the process, learn a foreign language. Teaching English seemed like the perfect way to explore a country and its people, so in 1993 I moved to Athens, Greece where I started working as an English instructor at a small language school. To be honest, I initially planned to teach for a short period of time, perhaps five years or so, but twenty years have passed and I’m still going strong!
There are plenty of things I like about teaching, but I think the thing I enjoy the most is meeting people from different countries and cultures. Now that I teach online, I really enjoy the fact that I get to meet and spend time with people from all over the globe in my own office.
Q. What made you choose Languages at Home?
A. I really like the way that Languages at Home focuses on the needs and learning goals of students and stays focused on them. During the 1st lesson, the teacher and student work together to identify the student’s goals and a list of long term objectives is drawn up. Great emphasis is then placed on staying on track to achieve these goals during subsequent lessons.
I also like the care and attention that is put into matching the student with the appropriate teacher, and the constant communication between teachers and administration which ensures that everything is running smoothly and the needs of the student are being met.
Finally, I love the fact that Languages at Home is a school where you can learn many languages – not just English. That will definitely come in handy when I decide to take up French again!
Q. What are the advantages of learning a foreign language online?
A. There are so many advantages that it’s hard to know where to begin. I think the most important advantage has to be the incredible flexibility in scheduling that’s available when you study online. If your only free time is early in the morning, late at night or at weekends, you’ll undoubtedly experience problems finding a school or private instructor who can accommodate you, but that’s never a problem when studying online. Then, there’s the valuable time and energy you’ll save by not having to commute to a school, and that’s extra time and energy you can invest in learning!
Finally, an online lesson lends itself perfectly to the digital revolution that’s happening all around us. Online lessons are, in my opinion, much more dynamic than traditional classes. Rather than being limited to the teaching materials found in coursebooks, online educators are more likely to be making use of all the great resources out there on the internet. So, for example, rather than studying a text in a coursebook that is of little interest to them, students are more likely to find themselves reading online texts, watching videos or listening to podcasts about subjects they are passionately interested in.
Q. Getting ready for exams such as IELTS or TOEFL can be very stressful. What is your advice to people who are preparing for those exams?
A. Yes, this can be a very stressful experience, especially if you need to achieve a particular score on these tests in order to gain entry to a university. The most important thing is to make sure that your English is at (or close to) the level required for these exams before you sign up for them. All too often, I see poorly prepared students signing up for the next available exam date and then they go and look for a teacher who can prepare them (usually in an unreasonably short period of time). I recommend that students find a teacher long before they plan to enter for the exam and begin a course of comprehensive study together. I also recommend that students work with their teacher to decide when they are ready to enter the exam. Your teacher will be able to evaluate your level and make an objective assessment of when you’re ready.
During your preparation, it’s important that you become as familiar with the exam format as possible, which means getting as much practice as you can with mock exam papers. During this preparation, your teacher will share with you strategies and methods for dealing with each part of the exam. This knowledge is invaluable as even a student with a high level of English can experience difficulties when faced with exercises under exam conditions where stress is a factor and time is at a premium. It’s particularly important that you get some practice working to the time limits of a given exam. As the exam date nears, make sure that you are only spending 20 minutes on an essay, if that is how much time you are given in the exam. Get a stopwatch, or use an app on your mobile device to keep track of the time so that you can experience the stress that you will feel on exam day. The more stress you feel while preparing, the less you will feel in the exam, and less stress in the exam will undoubtedly lead to better results.
Q. You are fluent in Greek. Why did you choose Greek and what was your experience like learning the language?
A. In my early twenties, I moved to Greece and started working as a TEFL teacher at a small language school in Athens. I had already decided at that point that I wanted to learn a second language so Greek was the obvious choice. Living in the country where a language is spoken definitely makes learning easier and I was really keen to learn as much as I could as quickly as possible. I picked up vocabulary fairly rapidly as I was exposed to the language non-stop on a daily basis, and I made a concerted effort to read as much as I could. I also found pronunciation pretty easy, and despite what many people think, it’s quite easy to read Greek.
Grammar, on the other hand, was much trickier. I remember feeling quite daunted by the prospect of having to learn tables of noun and adjective inflections, and it can take quite a long time before you can put together even a simple sentence correctly. I remember it took about five years of hard work before I finally realised that I was fluent enough to use the language the way I wanted. It was, and still is, an amazing feeling to be able to speak another language.
Q. What would be your advice for people who may want to learn a new language?
A. My number one tip would be to get as much exposure to the language as possible. If you’re living in a country where that language is spoken, then that’s usually not a problem, but if you’re not then you need to work a little harder to get that necessary exposure. Fortunately, the internet and digital media can be a huge help here. Read newspapers as often as you can in your target language and follow that up by listening to the same news stories using internet radio or a podcast. This will make for an excellent vocabulary lesson. Exposure doesn’t have to be hard work either – you can keep it fun by watching movies or TV shows in your target language and of course songs can be a great way to learn and have fun simultaneously.
You’ll inevitably run into some difficulties, though, and you’re sure to have plenty of unanswered questions while you’re learning a foreign language, and that’s where a good teacher can be invaluable. Overcoming those difficulties and finding answers to your questions quickly and efficiently will help you achieve your learning goals much faster, which in turn, will motivate you to stay on track and continue learning, so I thoroughly recommend that if you are planning to learn a new language, you find the right teacher to assist you.
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