I live and work in the beautiful county of Cornwall in the UK where, as well as my online work, I also teach face-to-face one-to-one English lessons in people’s homes.
Sometimes I hear from people who want to improve their English, but for various reasons they aren’t able to commit to weekly lessons with a teacher.
This may be because of the cost, or because travelling to lessons is too difficult for those without a car, or there aren’t any group classes nearby, or family and work schedules and commitments make it difficult to commit to regular lessons during normal working hours and evenings.
If this sounds like you and you have difficulty accessing English lessons in Cornwall, but you have some spare time to learn and you’re teaching yourself English, there may be a perfect solution that gives you the support you need from a teacher, makes your self-study work more effective, and saves you money.
Here’s a reminder from a previous post about how a teacher can help support you as you learn English as an (almost) independent language learner:
Being an independent language learner doesn’t mean you have to learn alone or without support. You can get help from a teacher when you need it – as well as from family and friends and online communities of other language learners.
If you have good study skills and access to good resources, you can be almost entirely independent – but don’t forget you’ll still need native or fluent English speaking partners for your speaking practice. And of course an English teacher can be an excellent speaking partner
Your success will depend on your motivation and commitment and you’ll still have to practise your English regularly – but knowing how to improve your English on your own means that you will need fewer formal English lessons, which will save you money.
A teacher can also give you feedback on your progess, and suggest ways forwards so you can make even more progress.
If you would like teacher support and guidance and a helping hand to keep you on track while you’re learning English, I can help you with that.
You have one Skype lesson per month with me.
For the rest of the month you study on your own but you’ll receive a weekly email from me to say “hello” and ask you how you’re getting on and if you have any questions about the English you’re learning. I’ll reply to simple questions by email, and we’ll cover more complex questions in our next lesson.
And because I’m local to you we can meet up for a lesson face-to-face sometimes too.
If you want support while you practise your English at a cafe, or a supermarket or a bank, or any other activity where you need to speak English but you don’t feel confident enough to do this on your own, we can do this as your lesson time too.
So, you get the best of everything 🙂
You learn English without spending a lot of money, you study at a time that suits you, and you learn exactly what you want to learn.
Plus you get teacher support and guidance while you learn, and you get one 45 minute lesson per month via Skype where we can go over any language points you’re learning or having difficulty with (with the option to have an occasional face-to-face lesson if you feel you need or would like that).
This service is only £50 per month and if it sounds like something you might be interested in, contact me for an informal chat for more information.
If it’s not for you at the moment you’ll find lots of advice about learning English on this site, plus ideas for online materials and resources that will help you learn independently.
My friend and fellow teacher Angelika Davey offers this sort of support for people who want to learn German. I think it’s a wonderful idea and it was reading about her service that inspired me to start something similar for learners local to me.
What do you think? Does this sound like a good way to learn English or German, or any other language?
Thank you, Angela, for mentioning my blog post.
Since writing it I noticed a change in how people learn. Although group lessons are still very important as they allow interaction with fellow students under the guidance of the teacher, I think there will be more and more self study. By offering this service we can make sure people stick with it. I have seen some wonderful self study from some of my students and I’m sure you will, too!
Angelika Davey recently posted..My top 5 English versions of German hits
Twitter: german_tutor
HI Angelika,
You’re welcome. Thank you for the inspiration 🙂
I agree that there will be/is more and more self study – there are now so many very good online resources in particular that are freely available for people to learn with and from.