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Polyglot: ESL, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, Russian, German
Mary G.

5.0 (177 ratings)

331 hours tutoring

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Hourly Rate: $90
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Response time: 27 minutes

About Mary

Bio

Everyone that knows me knows I love languages: all of them! I've studied 17 so far. (Swahili is next!) I have a B.A. in English, one in Biblical Languages, and an M.A. in German Translation (from Kent State). Even as a professional translator/editor, I've found time to teach and coach students on their foreign-language journeys for over 20 years. I really enjoy being a mentor to language-learners, and we often form friendships that last long after our lessons end because they know I care both...

Everyone that knows me knows I love languages: all of them! I've studied 17 so far. (Swahili is next!) I have a B.A. in English, one in Biblical Languages, and an M.A. in German Translation (from Kent State). Even as a professional translator/editor, I've found time to teach and coach students on their foreign-language journeys for over 20 years. I really enjoy being a mentor to language-learners, and we often form friendships that last long after our lessons end because they know I care both about their linguistic progress and their success in life.

My specialties are English (including TESOL & IELTS), Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Koine Greek, Braille, and Morse code. I've taught everything from university courses to one-on-one tutoring. I love working with students of all ages and abilities, helping them excel in a wide variety of subjects. My students say I'm a good listener, patient, and teach in a thorough and understandable way that takes their questions and learning challenges into account and addresses them well.

I use visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning techniques, incorporating colors, props, songs, hand motions, etc., to aid in understanding and vocabulary acquisition. We draw flashcards, come up with mnemonic devices, play games, make videos, and do anything else that makes language study fun and motivating for students. Occasionally, we go to a store, visit a zoo or park, make a recipe, etc., to provide even more practical language use.

There are few things in life I enjoy more than teaching others to speak the languages I love, so message me, if you've ever been told or thought you "can't" learn a language. In my experience, it's the teaching methods that don't work, not the student that can't learn, and believe me, I have a lot of experience. I look forward to hearing from you and showing you that you can learn that language you've always wanted to speak but were afraid to start. My mission is to show others language-learning is fun and easy. Let me show you!

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Education

York College
English and also Biblical Studies
Kent State University
Masters

Additional Languages

French
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
German

Policies

  • Hourly Rate: $90
  • Rate details: *Discounts for SUMMER, multiple bookings, etc. Contact me for details. *Group: $37.50/hr/student; *2+ subjects/hr: +$5/hr/extra subject; *2+ hr sessions: +$5/hr/student after 2 hrs
  • Lesson cancellation: 24 hours notice required

  • Background check passed on 9/22/2015

  • Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee

Schedule

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Approved Subjects

Braille

Braille

I learned to read Braille at the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired in 2006. I tutor students in Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3, and I have my own materials. I teach how to both read and write and I help the students explore the various types and brands of Braille note takers and their pros and cons. I also help students learn about community and national resources for the blind, incl. accessibility software and study skills, resources for travel (various types of canes or guide dogs), support from other blind community members and national organizations for the blind.
Czech

Czech

I studied Czech at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. There is a large ethnic Czech population in that part of NE, so my studies also included cultural events, information about which I like to share with my students. I also have experience in comparative linguistics and how Czech and Russian are similar and relate to each other.
English

English

My native language is "English," but I speak it with an American Midwestern accent. (This is the accent U.S. newscasters are trained in, because it is considered neutral and most understandable.) Having traveled and studied as much as I have, however, I know a good deal about other variations of the English language (British English, Australian English, etc., but also the English generally taught in China, the English generally taught in many European countries, and the English generally taught and spoken in many African countries). I have significant training in English vocabulary, grammar, and style and I use these skills every day in my work as an editor and translator into English. I have been teaching students these building blocks of the English language since the year 2000 in a variety of ways: -by teaching ESL courses and tutoring students in ESl, - by tutoring students in academic writing, - by teaching and tutoring students to understand their own language better as they learned a foreign language (e.g., parts of speech, etc.), -and by tutoring students in the history of the English language. I also have a B.A. degree in English with a focus on literature. I have training in adolescent lit, mythology and folklore (Greek and Roman), world lit, British lit, Shakespeare, American lit, and biblical literature.
ESL/ESOL

ESL/ESOL

I became a certified ESL tutor in 2007, but I have been tutoring students in ESL and teaching ESL classes since the year 2000. I am glad to help students prepare for the TOEFL or IELTS, but I also often simply have conversational English lessons with students to improve their speaking skills, work on English idioms, or help them with one specific area they find very challenging. I teach with a lot of enthusiasm and so I always use props, colorful illustrations, students' personal experiences, controversial topics, etc., as the basis of the lesson to make sure students stay interested and continue learning. Sometimes we even go on field trips to places that are relevant to the topic of the day's lesson. For example, if we are talking about retail, we may go to the mall and talk about the different aspects of retail that we encounter. Even though American culture is not technically a part of "English as a Second Language," I also often have students talk to me about the frustrations they have adapting to the culture in this country, because having gone through culture shock here myself, I know it can be quite a hard step to take toward a successful life in America. Often this conversation provides an opportunity to explain some of the U.S.'s cultural traits and it always leads to very good discussions and a lot of excellent speaking practice.
French

French

I was born in Brussels, and as that is part of the French-speaking portion of Belgium, I grew up with a native accent and I went to a French-speaking school through third grade, at which point we moved to Austria. I later did undergraduate and graduate coursework in French translation, linguistics, and literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I got my start in tutoring in college from a work/study job and I have been tutoring French for years. I am also a French<>English translator, as well as a consecutive and simultaneous French interpreter, specializing in medicine, as well as literature and religion.
German

German

I grew up in Vienna, Austria and went to a German school, so I have an authentic German accent. After moving to the States, I did graduate coursework in German literature and linguistics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and am now finishing Kent State University's Master of Arts in Translation with German as my focus language. I also taught German at Kent State University for two years, from 2011 to 2013, and have since been working as a German medical translator. When I tutor German, I focus on the areas that my student in covering in class, of course, but I also get the student working with and on all areas of the language. For beginning learners, we work on a student's ability to listen and differentiate syllables (morphemes) and words and make sense of them, as well as their ability to think in German. I emphasize correct spelling and tie that to reading and to proper pronunciation by showing my students the relationships letters have to the sounds they represent and helping them be able to anticipate which syllables do not carry the emphasis and therefore will not sound like they are "supposed to" when used by native speakers. I help students work backwards to "un-collapse" the sounds, so that the unrecognizable words students hear can, in fact, be recognized. Grammar is a focus, no matter what level of German I am tutoring, but I teach it in innovative and interesting ways (using colorful charts, popular German songs, puzzles, Jenga (a game), etc.) I help students learn cases and tenses by comparing and contrasting them with their English counterparts. And we spend quite a bit of time on prepositions, since they have been known to cause nightmares before exams. My students also receive training in vocabulary and German idioms, as well as German conventions. We learn these topically and using a variety of visual, auditory, and tactile means. I build in reading comprehension and writing practice in my teaching of vocabulary and before they know it, my students have read and written their first German
Grammar

Grammar

It wasn't until I took Koine Greek as a senior in high school that I really started understanding English grammar. In fact, I even started LIKING grammar! Having spent the first 18 years of my life avoiding it, though, I definitely understand where students are coming from when they say they don't get and don't like grammar. The thing about grammar, though, is that if you understand it and if you know how to use it, you can do and say so much more than you can if you don't. For one thing, you can make people laugh, if you know how to (mis)use grammar. For instance, what would you think in a situation like this? You're chatting with someone online and they say they're going over to a friend's house for dinner and ask if you want to go. You don't know the friend and ask what she's like, and the response you got is that "she <3 cooking wild flowers & her pets." Would you want to go? How about if they had told you that "she loves cooking, wild flowers, and her pets" instead? See the difference? That's just one example of how I explain grammatical concepts and their importance to students. I try to keep it interesting and entertaining, so that students will keep learning and will not see my tutoring sessions as just more lessons they have to sit through. I am pleased to admit that I am frequently able to help students stop seeing grammar as the enemy, but rather as an ally in their speaking and writing arsenal. I work with students on punctuation; on prefixes, suffixes, and word roots; on homophonic heterographs (like "there," "their," and "they're"); on the correct use of verbs and participles (e.g., "I have already eaten," not "I have already ate."); on the parts of speech, in general; on syntax; and on any other topics students find difficult. I help students with English grammar, but I also work with students on grammar in my other languages. It is often helpful to students to compare and contrast English grammar to the grammar of the new language they are learning, so I often work with students on understan
Greek

Greek

I have a Bachelor or Arts in Biblical Studies/Biblical Languages and I took three years of Koine Greek. I have translated large portions of the Biblical manuscripts into English. In tutoring Koine Greek, I focus on showing students the patterns, while highlighting the differences. We use a variety of means to learn including student-drawn flash cards, colorful charts, mnemonic devices, etc. And lots, and lots, and lots of practice translating sentences and phrases they can relate to--things they want to say. Even though it's a dead language, I try to make learning it interesting and fun: my students enjoy our lessons and their grades and understanding of Greek improve.
Latin

Latin

I decided to take Latin for several reasons: because I hadn't studied it yet, to find out more about the background of many of the other languages I know, and to supplement my knowledge of biblical manuscripts. However, I like to tell people that first year Latin was the only class, where a teacher has ever kicked me out. He "kicked me out" when he found out how many languages I had already studied, telling me to take the next level up instead, because I already knew too much about linguistics and would be bored in his class. So I started with Accelerated Latin instead, did very well, and went on from there. In teaching Latin, I will teach you (or your child) not only the vocabulary and the grammar of the language, but also how to learn a language like Latin. Students often have trouble learning dead languages, because things tend to take place only on paper or in a book, rather than in person-to-person conversation, as with other languages still spoken today. However, I will help you "bring it back to life," as it were, as you learn. For visual learners, we will use methods like colored charts and funny flash cards. For aural learners, we will learn by using varying pitches for various parts of speech, sounds that correspond to vocabulary words, and audio flash cards. And for tactile learners, we will do activities like writing sentences fragments on puzzle pieces and figuring out why some pieces can and others can not fit together. I have found that even for college students, these teaching methods are effective learning tools, because they are so different from what students' experiences with Latin have been otherwise, which allows the linguistic facts students pick up on from these types of methods to stick with them that much better.
Reading

Reading

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English with a focus on literature. I have training in Greek and Roman mythology and folklore, in world literature, British literature, Shakespeare, American literature, adolescent literature, and novel. I also have a second B.A. in Biblical Studies, so I am also knowledgeable about biblical literature. Furthermore I have done graduate work in French literature, studying French contemporary novel, 20th Century French novel, and French literary translation. I have also studied German children's literature, as well as German literary translation. And I have studied a survey of Hispanic literature, in addition to Spanish literary translation. I help students improve their reading comprehension in a number of languages, but I also often simply help students pass their lit classes by discussing with them the texts they are reading and ... ... ensuring they understood the plot of the story, ... enabling them to identify with the characters in their readings, ... making sure they caught the most important points of the selections they were assigned, ... helping them to recognize quotes that are likely to be on exams, ... etc.
Russian

Russian

I studied Russian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln under a wonderful teacher, who had an extensive background in linguistics and teaching methodologies and who has significantly influenced my tutoring style. I did both undergraduate and graduate work there and have since continued to work on my Russian. I work with students on whatever Russian skills they need help with in whatever ways help them most. The areas that I usually focus on, though, are the case system and its endings, for lower level students, and for more advanced students, Russian participles. I use a variety of means of tutoring Russian, which include everything from comparisons of Russian linguistic traits to English traits (and often teaching students things they did not realize about English), to using color-coded charts, to discussing Russian movies and Russian-as-a-foreign-language news websites (in Russian, of course), to just plain practicing the difficult parts over, and over, and over, and over again.
Spanish

Spanish

Spanish is the first of the many languages that I studied after moving back to the States as a teenager, so I have the most history with it. From high school all the way up through graduate school, I have been taking Spanish classes: classes in the language (just in general), in Spanish linguistics (including phonetics), in medical Spanish, in Spanish translation, and in Spanish literature. I have worked as an over-the-phone Spanish interpreter, doing consecutive interpretation into and out of Spanish. (My clients needed help in medical, human services, and accounting situations.) I have done simultaneous conference interpreting from Spanish into English, and had I not moved out of state, I would definitely still be doing it, because I enjoyed it so much. I also work with an author, who publishes books in Spanish, then translates them into English and publishes that version, as well. I edit his Spanish manuscripts and cross-check his translation into English. So, I have lots of varied experiences with the Spanish language. Spanish is a beautiful language and I would love to help you master it.
Writing

Writing

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, with training in ESL, linguistics, and literature. My work as a freelance editor and proofreader over the past several years has given me lots of experience with all sorts of writing styles and genres, as well as with many different style guides. Also as a professional translator, I am constantly trying to find just the perfect way to express in writing the content and sentiments that are in my source text, which is a wonderful way to continually refine my writing skills. I help two types of students improve their writing: non-native speakers and native speakers (whether [non-]native speakers of English or of another language). When a non-native speaker (for example, an ESL student) asks me to help them learn to write better, I work with them on several aspects that will influence their writing: on their ability to think in English (or another language) and to understand spoken or written communication, on pronunciation and the connections between the way words sound and the way they are spelled, on their reading comprehension and vocabulary (including idioms), and on grammar and English writing conventions (or those of another language). The reason I work with students (at least a little bit) on all their language skills is because research shows that speaking, listening, and reading are all connected to writing, and that students learning a new language will do better in their writing skills, if they also use their other skills to help them acquire information that they can use in their writing. In my lessons with native speakers (of whatever language) who struggle either with spelling, handwriting, or simply how to write papers or essays the "right" way, I either use some of the same strategies as with my non-native students (for example, in teaching spelling), or I help students get used to writing the kinds of texts they struggle with by using text samples they find interesting. We being by choosing topics to work with that the students like and then finding examples o
Italian
Portuguese
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Ratings and Reviews

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5.0 (177 ratings)
5 star
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4 star
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3 star
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Reviews

Great tutor!

I really liked this tutor. I was able to meet with her online and in person. She was very patient and able to repeat or explain things in a different way when I was having trouble understanding a concept. I had taken a Beginning Spanish 1 class in college but it had been about three years since I took it. I am now returning to school and taking Beginning Spanish 2. I hardly remembered anything from Spanish 1. I only had six weeks to review everything, and I was very concerned about getting through all of Spanish 1 material within that time. But she was able to look at the syllabus and teach me the whole semester's worth of material within that short time. Now that I have been in my Spanish 2 class a few weeks, I am actually one of the only students who is not struggling with the material. I was impressed with the structure and commitment this tutor gave me. And she even said I could contact her with further individual questions even after we were no longer working together. I also think it's good that she does an initial session where she takes time to find out about you and your learning styles, before she actually starts tutoring. That way, she can be more helpful since she knows how you work best. I would definitely use her again.

Anna, 17 lessons with Mary

great insights

Mary used a technique that is based in neuroscience. How different parts of the brain learn different things and the different stages of learning through years of practice and study. I have been looking for a native English speaking teacher hoping that person would have insights on what it’s like to be an English speaker learning Italian. Mary offered me ideas on how to learn just as our own children learn by repetition and association with every day activities. She is very thorough and I appreciate her attention to detail. I look forward to learning more from her.

Sonya, 1 lesson with Mary

Patient and uses a brain-friendly approach

I like that Mary will adapt the lesson to whatever you want to work on which allows for stress-free learning. Today, we explored the words that I have learned from Duolingo and used it to form sentences and engage in a conversation.

Ana, 47 lessons with Mary

Introduction to Tutoring

Mary did a great job of talking with my daughter and asking questions about her interests and how she prefers to learn. I appreciate Mary’s attention to detail.

Tammi , 47 lessons with Mary

Super helpful

We started learning songs and the alphabet, pronunciation and some basic familiar words. Mary is easy to work with and knows what she’s doing!

Jaimee, 3 lessons with Mary

Carter

Mary did an outstanding job breaking down information to help me understand it in a 48 hour window. She wants to make sure you understand the information before moving on to the next section. Mary teaches at a nice and controlled pace to allow the student to understand. We reviewed verbs, present & past tenses, and masculine and feminine grammar. Absolutely recommend to anyone else. She’s also extremely flexible with her time slots!

Carter, 3 lessons with Mary

Knowledgeable and dedicated tutor

Mary helped my son prepare for a Latin test over Labor Day weekend on short notice. She went out of her way to make room for him in spite of the holiday weekend. She spent the time needed and made sure she assessed his needs and baseline learning skills. Her plan took everything needed into account. My son, who had struggled with Latin from the first day of school, went into his test confident and came out with a good grade. Mary is a gem!

Sade, 3 lessons with Mary

Mellophone lesson

I knew my daughter was nervous heading into tutor lessons, Mary was extremely knowledgeable, patient and was able to put my daughter at ease. Thank you

Daniel , 2 lessons with Mary

I am so glad Mary is my tutor.

I have been using other sources to assist me with my learning process but without Mary in my corner I would be spinning my wheels. I look forward to a long and successful year with Mary at my side.

Amelia , 7 lessons with Mary

Utilizes multiple intelligences

Mary has been such a blessing for our son. He has a writing disability and an anxiety disorder. She modifies her lesson as she goes based on whether he is feeling stressed or more in control. It is more important to her that he internalizes the material and feels confident in the skills rather than pushing too hard in order to check off all portions of her lesson plan. Mary is comfortable asking questions about my child, his interests, and his learning style so that her lessons are engaging and fun. My boy is active and has a fantastic visual memory, so she routinely uses color-coding of spelling patterns to help bolster his weak spelling skills. She also invents active games to practice spelling skills. This is so beneficial because research shows that the more sections of the brain are utilized in acquiring a skill, the more permanent the knowledge will be. Mary is patient, kind, and easily approachable with any questions or comments we have. It is evident that she invests quite a bit of time in her lessons and she cares about her students. I give her five stars!

Heather, 14 lessons with Mary
Hourly Rate: $90
Response time: 27 minutes
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