DEDICATED TO THE STUDY OF ESL AND TOEFL
My name is Sharon, and I am a certified tutor in English as a Second Language, ESL, and the Test of English as a Foreign Language, TOEFL. I have a five-star rating from my WyzAnt students. Furthermore, I am certified by the Minnesota Literacy Council to teach ESL. I have a masters degree from Stanford University and a bachelors degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
I would like to help you and your family improve your skills in English. Although a fourth-generation American, I grew up in a bi-lingual, bi-cultural home speaking English as a first language, and Cantonese Chinese with elderly family members. Subsequently, I learned Mandarin and Spanish, and have studied French, Italian, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesian, and Korean. Being able to communicate well in English and other languages, has afforded me opportunities beyond my parents' and grandparents' dream. It is for this reason that I am dedicated to helping you and your family to overcome the barriers in English communication.
OVERCOMING THE ENGLISH BARRIER
I understand your challenges with the second language. I learned English from parents spoke English, mixed with Chinese. In high school, I was a very strong in math and science. But I knew I needed to perfect read comprehension, vocabulary and grammar to get into a great university. I improved my reading skills, grammar, and vocabulary through the study of classical Latin. As a result, I attained high scores on the SAT and Achievement college admissions exams and was awarded a 4-year scholarship to attend U.C. Berkeley, where I received the BS. A few years later, I scored over 95 percentile on the GMAT, Graduate Management Aptitude Test and was awarded the recipient of a two-year fellowship at Stanford University, where I received the MBA. Education changes my life.
For more than 20 years, I specialized in business communications. I coordinated the process of drafting strategic plans, responding to requests for proposals, and overseeing advertising and promotional campaigns for well-known companies and start-ups who conducted business in the US, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Through work, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit, work and live in more than ten countries, being exposed to many languages and cultures. I empathize with how difficult it is to learn another language!
MINNESOTA LITERACY COUNCIL; CERTIFIED TO TEACH ESL
Today, I have been trained and certified by the Minnesota Literacy Council to teach English as a Second Language, also known as ESL. I teach ESL in a small classroom environment with students from Mexico, Ecuador, Congo, and Somalia at Centro Guadalupano in Minneapolis. My class uses the curriculum called Future, English for Results, as well as Rosetta Stone. Our English language lessons focus on life skills. They include English dialogs and written exercises on: meeting people, renting an apartment, calling the doctor, reading a prescription, applying for jobs, and interviewing.
My students have progressed quickly in their study of ESL, excelling at the CASAS exam. CASAS is the most widely used system for assessing adult basic reading, math, listening, writing, and speaking skills throughout the United States. My students have exceeded the state average in their CASAS exam scores.
Here are some methods I have found effective for helping novice students in English.
Listening Exercises
- Practicing makes perfect. Distinguishing between words that sound similar.
Phonics Drills
- Replicating English vowels, consonants, and diphthongs.
- Sounding out new word.
Vocabulary Building
- Using derivative root words to expand vocabulary.
- Linking nouns to adjectives, adverbs, and verbs.
Grammar Patterns
- Reviewing nouns for singular and plural.
- Studying agreement between subject and verb.
- Memorizing irregular verbs.
- Understanding present, past, perfect and subjective verb tenses.
- Converting infinitives to gerunds.
- Using prepositions properly: by, at, in, on, to, from.
- Utilizing adverbs: who, what, when, where, how.
- Recognizing the sentence structure for questions and answers.
Linguistic Comparisons
- Finding the similarities and differences between English patterns and other language patterns.
MORE ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS EXPERIENCES
- Coaching Communications for Dale Carnegie
- Private speech coaching for media figures, C-level business executives and political candidates
- Publishing press releases and preparing others for press conferences
- Drafting requests for proposals RPFs, business plans for venture capital, and strategic plans for an initial public offering, IPO
- Preparing others for job interviews
SUMMARY
It gives me much joy to help people understand, speak, read, and write English better. I have focused my coaching to English as a Second Language, as well as to helping individuals who speak more than one language, to gain confidence in oral communication and public speaking.
Certified in teaching and tutoring ESL by the Minnesota Literacy Council, and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and Stanford, I am dedicated to getting you or your children into a great university, getting you the next-level job that stretches your potential, or helping you making good friends and neighbors through meaningful conversations in English.
My schedule is flexible to meet your needs.
Looking forward to meeting you!
Sincerely,
Sharon W. in Eden Prairie
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