I love teaching. I love tutoring. I love helping students learn how to learn, and love that moment when I see the light bulb go off in your brain, either that you understand the problem at hand, or that you have come to love figuring out that problem and have the confidence that you can do the next one.
I have been a dedicated tutor for over four years. I have worked professionally as a dedicated college/community college teacher for over an additional four years as well. My students have been those working to attain their GED, or struggling with math as part of their culinary arts learning process, and even learning anatomy as a primary element of their massage therapy certification. In college, I began as a premed student, but graduated as an English major with honors. I received an MFA from the the University of Oregon in Creative Writing, and have published stories and poems. In my professional career I've been an English teacher, a Creative writing teacher, a bookstore owner, and large office manager. I have been the editor of a literary magazine. I have been the editor of Alaska's fish and wildlife magazine, for which I wrote articles as well as editing, organizing, and bringing to print the efforts of other contracted writers and graphic artists.
I received my certification in teaching English as a second language in 2008, and take particular joy in, and respect for, these students who are learning this language to make their lives better here in the United States. For many of them, English is not really their second language, but their third or their fourth. I was the ESL teacher for a year at the Southeast Regional Resource Center, where I taught classes in beginning, intermediate, and advanced English speaking, reading, writing, and pronunciation. I was responsible for these students assessment, before they worked with me, and periodically during their learning process. I also assessed and tutored both GED and adult basic education students in all of their subjects: English, history, math, composition, and science.
My focus in teaching and tutoring is in helping you gain the skills and confidence to master your subject, and give you the tools with which you can tackle any subject in the future. Through assessment of level and your particular learning style and goals, I will help you master the subject and give you the confidence that you can approach any subject with the skills you've gained. I am happy to dance, sing, or hop, for instance, if that will make clear to you the vocabulary of movement or sounds. I will take numbers, equations, or formulas apart until the smallest part of each becomes clear to you, so you can start to group them together and understand larger calculations. As a skilled writer and editor, my guidance through the writing process will make your essays and compositions effective and on track. With my background in science, and with a great deal of my professional life spent working with numbers and formulas, I can help you learn these subjects as well.
The most important part of ANY subject is its vocabulary, whether the subject is algebra, anatomy, or English. Vocabulary is the key to accurate communication of concepts or meanings. When you feel overwhelmed by a class, I've found that it's often because you don't yet understand the vocabulary of that subject, so you can't use those concepts to make more complex ideas, or make mathematical functions work. I'm here to help. Let me help you.
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