My name is Janice and I have been teaching English to adults and teenagers for over ten years.

I grew up in a bilingual environment, with Australian and Spanish nationality and loving both cultures, although the language spoken at home was English. For many years I worked in the financial sector and then moved into teaching English, which I have been doing for over ten years.

For this purpose I obtained the Cambridge CELTA Diploma (Cambridge Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults), and I started to do on a temporary basis what became permanent and something that has led me to meet people from all fields, learn everything about official exams, and refine the teaching method that different students need depending on their objectives.

My classes are taught online through various videoconferencing platforms (Skype, Google meet, etc.).

How private classes are taught:

• • Conversation/grammar classes: In your first class we will have a relaxed conversation, in English if your level allows for it, where you will tell me about your goals, concerns, history in learning English, and what you expect from my classes. During this conversation, I can see what your level of English is. After this conversation and based on what you have explained to me plus the experience with hundreds of students, I will propose the plan of action for your classes: more focused on conversation with some grammar, or more focused on grammar with some conversation, depending on the level you have. In any case, you don’t need to buy any material.

• • In case you contact me for official exam preparation, in that first class we will set your goal: exam date, determine your level and chances of success, what time frame you would need to be prepared for the exam (depending on the level we see in this first class), and plan of action, depending on the number of classes you can take per week and your time to do homework between classes. For most of the official exams, you do not need any materials as we will use the ones I have collected over years of teaching.

The exams I can help with are: Cambridge Certificates: KET, PET, First, Advanced; Aptis General and Advanced; Access to University (EVAU, EBAU), Competitive exams (several for different types of positions, although predominantly for public education teachers).

• • If you contact me to prepare for a job interview, we will focus on role-plays rehearsing the interview, using your resume as a basis for the questions and also the questionnaires of questions that are usually asked during job interviews, which I use very often in my classes and I update them as the HR departments of large companies incorporate new questions and discard others.

• • Editing or proofreading letters or presentations: Sometimes you have written a letter or presentation in English, you are quite satisfied, but you are left with that question: will there be important mistakes? Does it sound right? How do I express this idea in English? For that, the best thing to do is to have a class, and together we go through the text and make some changes. You can also practice the oral presentation with me afterwards.

One thing you always ask me is: “Do I have to do homework?

The answer varies: If your goal is to pass any official exam or opposition, you will definitely have to do homework that I will send you after each class. For all this, we will use Google Classroom, although if you don’t like this tool, we will use mail for homework.

If your goal is to improve your level for work or leisure, but you don’t want to pass any official exam, then doing homework would depend entirely on you. In these cases what I recommend if your level is already intermediate or intermediate/high, is to watch audiovisual content and read in English, rather than doing grammar homework which is of course an essential step to learn English, but many times it is already urgent to move from there to the real world of speaking, reading, listening and writing. Many people get stuck in doing exercises and spend their whole lives without speaking or understanding anything. Hence the urgency, once you have already worked a lot on grammar, to dive into the real world by speaking with me and then on your own consuming content in English.

I always try to make our conversations enjoyable for you, so we will look for topics that you are interested in talking about. This is the way to get you to enjoy the classes, talking about things you like while you learn. If, in the process of the conversation, we see that you get confused with the conditionals, we will explain the conditionals (or any grammar form), and once you have understood them well, and we have even done some exercises together, we will continue with our conversation about history, economics, cooking, fashion, travel or sports (I don’t know much about the last one but I am making efforts to improve 😊).

If I see that you need to do exercises at home to strengthen that some grammar forms, I will send you links to do those exercises.

How group classes are structured:

Groups are formed with a minimum of two people and the price will vary depending on the number of people and the subject of the class. If you are interested in group classes, send me a message through the contact form to see if I have already formed the group you are looking for. Tell me what level you think you are at, if you just want to improve your English, or if you want to prepare for an official exam.

If you are very shy and it’s hard for you, don’t worry, I have had students like that in groups and I think I encourage them to feel comfortable, without forcing them too much but encouraging them to participate even if it’s just for a minute. Little by little.

I hope all this has helped you to make your decision

I’ll be waiting for you to start our classes as soon as possible!