About me
I was eight when my family moved from the UK to Murcia, and I didn't speak Spanish. I spent that first summer at a language school, then started at the local state school, where nobody spoke English. My first friend and I couldn't talk to each other at all to begin with. We got there anyway. Somewhere along the way Spanish stopped being something I was learning and became the language I had friends in.
As an English speaker, starting from nothing. I know what it's like to be the one person in the room who can't follow what's going on, so I don't expect you to sound perfect, and I won't make you feel daft when you don't. When something in Spanish doesn't make sense, I can usually explain why in plain English, because I once had to work it out myself.
These days I'm the person people ask when they need something sorted in Spain. I've helped family, friends, expats, retirees and backpackers with buying property, health appointments, the town hall and finding a good gestor or lawyer. So my lessons for life in Spain start from real situations: getting a cita previa, registering on the padrón, ringing the bank about a charge you don't recognise, or chatting to the neighbours over the wall. It's the Spanish that textbooks tend to skip.
Speak first.Make mistakes.Leave the grammar rules alone until they start to matter.
You don't need to know what the subjunctive is called to use it. You need to have heard it and said it enough times that it sounds right. When a rule does start to matter, because it keeps catching you out or because it's on your exam, we stop and go through it properly. For GCSE and A-level students that moment comes sooner, and that's fine.
I'm patient, and I plan. Every lesson has a point, and you'll always know what we're working on and why. But nobody gets told off for getting things wrong here. Saying it wrong out loud is how you end up saying it right.
When I turned 18, I spent two years teaching English to toddlers and young children, in the evenings, in a classroom at the local school. That's where I learned to keep a lesson simple and moving, and to spot quickly when someone's lost. Since then I've worked as a project manager on UK government technology projects, so plans and deadlines are second nature.
I split my year between the North East of England and Murcia, so all my lessons are online, by video call. Wherever you are, in the UK, Spain or somewhere else, we'll find a time that works.
I have two goldadors, Miley and April, and most of my spare time goes on taking them on adventures around the UK and Europe. If one of them wanders into a lesson, I can only apologise.
Book a free 15-minute call. We can talk in English or Spanish, whichever you prefer, and you don't have to book anything afterwards.
Book a free 15-minute call