Hello. I'm Tom. I am a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer, with additional 10 years experience in private sector consulting and training. I am new to the area and seeking a wide variety of tutoring opportunities and levels to match the skills I've acquired over the years. I am a trained economist in development economics and economic policy. Because my government career took me literally all over the world, I am totally fluent (Tested by US Foreign Service Institute) in French, Spanish and German, with working knowledge of Portuguese, Arabic and Hungarian. Indeed, I have had to use these languages in negotiations, speeches, interviews and simply managing and running organizations.
I am an experienced manager, having managed organizations over over 100 employees. I am told by those who have worked for me that i have exceptional teaching and mentoring skills their words, not mine. Evaluations have repeatedly stated that I have demonstrated strong interpersonal and analytical skills and problem solving. These important skills help me to identify an individual's learning needs and understanding gaps and overcome hurdles. One important thing I do is help American students overcome their hesitancy that Americans just can't learn a foreign language. My view is, if you speak one language, you can speak another and my teaching approach is tailored to that. In terms of languages, there are really seven separate skills involved: 1 identifying the sounds; repeating the sounds; understanding the words; speaking; reading; writing and translation. Each of these use different parts of the brain, yet many approaches combine these and it just doesn't work. To me, I try to separate these out and raise the comfort level of the learner. Before joining the U.S. Foreign Service, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher of English and German in Africa; In Ohio I developed, managed and taught an English program for Vietnamese refugees. So, I am not just talking about working with senior people.
I see myself certainly as "Multi cultural". As I said, I lived extensively overseas in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sudan, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, Afghanistan and Colombia, as well as worked in many more countries of Africa, Europe, South Asia and particularly Latin America.
Importantly, I enjoy teaching and mentoring as well as have the experience. I have worked with refugees in Ohio teaching English and "life skills". I was also a Graduate school teacher in Economics and International Development. In later years after the Foreign Service I had one had one contract developing and carrying out training programs in governance, economics and anticorruption for U.S. Government, NGOs and foreign governments.
Working with people from many cultures and age groups, from the interior of Ivory Coast to Vietnese refugees to Senior government officals from many countries, I feel has made me highly flexible and versatile. I strive for success and I hope I inspire that spirit in those I mentor or teach.
I look forward to meeting many students, trainees and friends in a wide variety of subject matter here in the Ft. Lauderdale area
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