Search
Carla D.'s Photo

Highly Experienced Certified Teacher, Bilingual, All Ages
Carla D.

5.0 (1 ratings)

6 hours tutoring

Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee
Hourly Rate: $45
Contact Carla
Response time: 8 minutes

About Carla

Bio

Hi! My name is Carla, and my passion is helping others to learn, to build confidence, and to be more successful. Whether your goal is to learn Spanish, improve your English, or find academic support for your elementary or middle schooler, I am here to support you all the way.

Let me tell you a little about myself. After obtaining my bachelor's degree in elementary education, I moved to Honduras for 6 years where I taught 2nd and 4th grades at a highly prestigious bilingual school. Once I...

Hi! My name is Carla, and my passion is helping others to learn, to build confidence, and to be more successful. Whether your goal is to learn Spanish, improve your English, or find academic support for your elementary or middle schooler, I am here to support you all the way.

Let me tell you a little about myself. After obtaining my bachelor's degree in elementary education, I moved to Honduras for 6 years where I taught 2nd and 4th grades at a highly prestigious bilingual school. Once I returned to the States, I began teaching English language learners in North Carolina public schools, first at an elementary school and then at the middle school level. I worked with students daily in their math, science, and English Language Arts (ELA) classes, so I am especially skilled in those subject areas. I also have taught beginning Spanish and beginning English classes to adults.

I am a very patient and very thorough instructor. I understand firsthand the insecurities and frustrations that come from struggling to comprehend a language or to understand concepts that others seem to grasp easily. Therefore, one of my primary goals is to help ease a student's anxiety and to see them build confidence in themselves and their own abilities. Over the years, I've become extremely adept at breaking concepts down and explaining them in ways that are easier for struggling students to understand. I can also typically foresee which concepts will be challenging to grasp or where misunderstandings are likely to occur, and then address those issues while I'm teaching, before they become a problem.

If your needs align with the service I provide, I really hope you will reach out to me. I would be delighted to speak with you and see how I can help you reach your goals!

Read more

Education

Southampton College, Long Island University
Elementary Education
  • Licensed teacher

Policies

  • Tutor’s lessons: In-person
  • Hourly Rate: $45
  • Travel policy: Within 20 miles of Clayton, NC 27520
  • Lesson cancellation: 12 hours notice required

  • Background check passed on 10/6/2026

  • Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee

Schedule

Loading...

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Carla hasn’t set a schedule.

We’re having trouble loading this schedule right now. Please try again later.

Approved Subjects

Algebra 1

Algebra 1

Math is my strongest subject, and algebra is my favorite type of math. As a middle school ESL teacher, I assisted in the math classes daily. I also spent hours previewing and reteaching the content to small groups, as well as designing notes, presentations, and assignments for my students.
Elementary (K-6th)

Elementary (K-6th)

I began my teaching career over 20 years ago after obtaining a bachelor's degree in elementary education. I subsequently taught 2nd grade and then 4th grade in a bilingual school in Honduras. Once I was back in the US, I became a kindergarten teacher assistant for a year while I completed the requirements for obtaining my ESL teachers license. I then spent my first year as an ESL teacher working with kindergarten through 5th grade students in an elementary school. The next year I transferred to a middle school that was for grades 5-8, and worked predominantly with the 5th and 6th graders. Over the next few years, I gradually began working with 7th and 8th graders as well. With all grade levels, much of my time was spent helping students who had weaknesses or gaps in their foundational knowledge, so I continued to teach elementary-level skills and concepts regularly, even when working with older students.
Elementary Math

Elementary Math

I got my bachelor's degree in elementary education K-6 with a math/science concentration, and subsequently taught 2nd and 4th grades in a bilingual school in Honduras. After returning to the States, I became a public school ESL teacher. In this role, I have helped hundreds of students learn the math skills they needed to be successful in school.
Elementary Science

Elementary Science

I got my bachelor's degree in elementary education K-6 and subsequently taught 2nd and 4th grades in a bilingual school in Honduras. After returning to the States, I worked as a Kindergarten teacher assistant for a year while I got my ESL and Spanish teaching licenses. I then taught elementary ESL for a year before moving up to middle school ESL, which I continued with for 12 more years.
English

English

Over the past 25+ years, I have helped many students of all ages and skill levels with English, both native and non-native speakers. My experience includes reading fluency and comprehension; writing skills, including elements such as organization and readability as well as conventions such as grammar and punctuation; listening for relevant or important information; and speaking skills, including expressing or explaining oneself well, as well as pronunciation and accent reduction. I began teaching English to non-native speakers over 25 years ago when I was in college, first to campers at an international summer camp, and then a year later to migrant farm workers on Long Island. The following summer I lived abroad in Honduras, where I gave classes in beginning English to children and adults in a semi-rural community. After graduating, I moved back to Honduras for 6 more years, where I taught 2nd and 4th grades at a bilingual school and once led a summer class in basic English for adults. After returning to the States, I obtained my ESL teaching license and worked in the public school system for nearly a decade and a half. In that role, I helped many students, including non-ESL students, with their productive and receptive English skills, both written and spoken.
ESL/ESOL

ESL/ESOL

I have been a certified ESL teacher in public schools for over a decade. Prior to that, I lived in Honduras and taught at a bilingual school, where about 95% of the students were native Spanish speakers. I also have experience providing beginning ESL classes and tutoring for adults, both in Honduras and in the United States.
Geometry

Geometry

I have been teaching for over 20 years, the last 12 of which were in a public middle school setting as an ESL teacher. In that role, I often helped students from a variety of backgrounds and learning experiences in their content classes, primarily in math, which is my strongest subject. I have helped many students with a variety of geometry concepts, including perimeter and circumference, area, surface area, volume, and measures of angles and triangles.
Grammar

Grammar

Even as a child, I enjoyed the structure of grammar and found the rules easy to understand, so I frequently helped others when they were confused. In my 20+ years of teaching, I regularly helped students understand correct English grammar as well. I have worked with elementary school students learning basic parts of speech and rules for capitalization and punctuation, middle school students struggling to write grammatically-correct essays, and learners of the English language, who have additional struggles with grammar and syntax beyond that of native speakers.
Handwriting

Handwriting

When I first began teaching more than 20 years ago, I taught 2nd grade at a school where Handwriting was still a graded subject listed on the report card. After a few years, I moved up to 4th grade, where I taught the students how to write using cursive handwriting. After I became an ESL teacher, I also had to teach some students how to write the letters and numbers; a few of them spoke languages that do not use the Latin alphabet, and many other students had never been formally taught in their native countries how to form letters.
Phonics

Phonics

I first began teaching English to non-English speakers back in college and have been doing it ever since. A big part of that involves intentionally and strategically practicing the sounds used in English words and recognizing the letter combinations that represent those sounds. When I taught elementary school students in Honduras, we used a phonics curriculum and Phonics was a graded subject on their report cards. My first two years teaching back in the states were as a Kindergarten teacher assistant and then as an elementary ESL teacher. Phonics instruction was a big part of the school day in both of those positions as well. In middle school, phonics instruction isn't usually taught explicitly (though often it still needs to be). With my lower-level ESL students, however, I still regularly worked with them on phonics skills such as decoding and syllable rules, calling it "pronunciation practice" for the older students. This was essential to helping them learn how to read the words they saw in their classes and to connect them to words they recognized in speech.
Prealgebra

Prealgebra

Math has long been one of my favorite subjects, and algebra is my favorite branch of math. In fact, my college degree is in education with a math/science concentration. As a middle school ESL teacher I often worked with students in their content classes, and since math is my strength, those were the classes I was assigned to the most. I also spent much of my time working individually or in small groups with students who had learning gaps and/or who were struggling to understand the material. Newcomers to the country have often never seen variables in math problems before, even as teenagers, so I often had to build up students' foundational understanding and bridge it to the grade-level content being covered. In doing so, I have discovered many ways of explaining the concepts so that they are easy to grasp and be built upon.
Reading

Reading

I believe very strongly in helping students learn to enjoy reading, or at the very least to find value in being able to read well and to appreciate the importance of the written word. I have been teaching English language and literacy for over 20 years, with experience in educating children, teens, and adults. The longest and most recent stretch has involved working with middle school ESL students of all levels. Since most of the students I have worked with are reading at least one or two grade levels behind their peers, I have a great deal of experience in helping students learn strategies for understanding difficult passages, finding the relevant information, and figuring out the meanings of unknown words. I also help readers learn to think beyond the text through making inferences, critically evaluating opinions and claims, and considering real-world applications of the content.
Spanish

Spanish

I began learning Spanish in a language immersion program in high school. Every day in all four grades, 2-3 of my classes were taught in Spanish, and we were generally not permitted to use English. After college, I moved to Honduras for 6 years for my first teaching job.
Writing

Writing

As an ESL teacher, I have worked extensively with students on their writing skills, for this is the area in which students most frequently need to improve in order to to exit the ESL program. I have helped students become better writers by targeting all the components of good writing, such as choosing relevant information to include, organizing the ideas clearly, improving sentence complexity and paragraph fluency, choosing more precise vocabulary, and writing in the appropriate register (formal vs informal writing), in addition to the basic conventions of grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.
Carla D.'s Photo

Questions? Contact Carla before you book.

Still have questions?

Contact Carla
Response time: 8 minutes

Ratings and Reviews

Rating

5.0 (1 ratings)
5 star
(1)
4 star
(0)
3 star
(0)
2 star
(0)
1 star
(0)

Reviews

excelent teacher !

Excelente maestra se siente bien lo que nos enseñó en nuestra primer clase !! Estamos emocionados por seguir tomando nuestras clases

Gabina, 5 lessons with Carla
Hourly Rate: $45
Response time: 8 minutes
Contact Carla