ABOUT ME
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn a range of foreign languages at secondary school and beyond. I started with French, which was closely followed by Latin, German and Spanish. (I did French and German at A-Level and degree level, and continued with Spanish lessons into adulthood.) I dabbled in Russian at sixth form and also had lessons in Icelandic at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík. After my undergraduate degree, my MA in linguistics introduced me to a huge range of other languages, of which West Greenlandic is probably the most memorable, and then my PhD enabled me to really zoom in on specific aspects of German and English lexical semantics that had always interested me.
I was also fortunate enough to be able to develop my love of English literature as part of my first degree, studying both 19th- and 20th-century works, as well as Old English literature. Since 2010, I have been part of a small local literary book club, which has enabled me to continue reading and discussing literary works with like-minded people. Authors whose work we have read over the years include Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Muriel Spark and Ray Bradbury, amongst many others.
Alongside the many different forms of teaching I have undertaken over the past couple of decades, I have worked extensively as an academic translator and copy-editor for academics at a range of institutions, including the Leibniz Institut für Deutsche Sprache (Leibniz Institute for German Language) in Mannheim, the University of Manchester, the University of Liverpool, Cardiff University, Aston University, Royal Holloway, University of London and Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf. Most of the copy-editing work I have undertaken has been for academics who are non-native speakers of English. I have worked mainly in the field of linguistics but have also undertaken work from other areas of study, inside and outside the humanities (e.g. literature and medicine).
I take great pleasure in sharing my enjoyment of languages through teaching. I spent two years teaching English in secondary schools abroad as part of my undergraduate degree in modern languages – one year in Paris and another near Stuttgart – and I also taught German language and linguistics to undergraduate students while I was completing my MA and PhD in linguistics at the University of Manchester. After my PGCE, I worked as a secondary school teacher in the UK, teaching both French and German to A-level. Since then, I’ve accumulated teaching experience in a whole range of different contexts, including teaching GCSE Spanish and GCSE English (language and literature), as well maths, non-verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning. I found it especially rewarding working one-to-one in schools with students who needed support outside mainstream lessons. My private tuition work now means that I get to build that one-to-one relationship with all my students and make a real difference to their learning week after week.
QUALIFICATIONS
I am a highly qualified linguist and teacher and fluent speaker of French, German and Spanish. My qualifications include:
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PhD in the field of English-German cognitive linguistics, entitled ‘A Comparative Analysis of Antonymy and Hybrid Anto-Complementarity in English and German within a Cognitive Framework’, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and supervised by Professor Martin Durrell and D. A. Cruse (University of Manchester)
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PGCE (Secondary, MFL) (Manchester Metropolitan University)
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MA in Linguistics, awarded with distinction (University of Manchester)
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BA (Double Hons) in Modern Languages (German (First Class) and French (2:1, with distinction in the spoken language)) (University of Manchester). This six-year degree comprised four years of study and two years abroad, and was the equivalent of taking two single honours degrees at the same time. It involved studying German and French literature, history, politics and linguistics, as well as language. I also had the opportunity to study Old English, as well as 19th- and 20th-century English literature. Furthermore, I studied Icelandic and, on completing my degree, was awarded the Arwid Johannson Exhibition for Excellence in Germanic Philology.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
I have many years’ experience of teaching and private tuition, including:
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two years teaching English as a foreign language in schools in France and Germany
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four years teaching German language and linguistics to undergraduates at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University
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five years as a secondary school teacher of French and German (both up to A-level) in schools in the UK, including three years as Key Stage 3 coordinator
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two years as a one-to-one tutor of English and maths at Key Stage 3 and GCSE, and of English as a foreign language, in secondary schools and children’s homes in the UK
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more than ten years as a private one-to-one tutor of German, French, Spanish, English and maths.
LEARN MORE ABOUT MY SERVICES
For more information about my online private tutoring service, please visit my private tuition page. Alternatively, please get in touch to discuss how I may help you.