Experience Summary
I have been tutoring and teaching for many years now. I started out on a small-scale in high school, without any experience, doing community service hours tutoring children at the TN Baptist Home. While I was studying for my undergraduate degree, I did scholarship hours doing private tutoring in English for International Students. I had so much fun I decided to get my Master's in English so that I could become a teacher. While in graduate school I came to know a local community center where I have been teaching now for quite a few years. Between Grad. school and now, I have taught ESL classes for various schools, centers, and companies as well as tutored in after-school programs in Language Arts and math. I have even tutored my own co-workers in pre-algebra in preparation for nursing certification tests. My speciality in tutoring/teaching has been English but I've also enjoyed tutoring math although I haven't had quite as many math tutoring opportunities as I have language arts.
Teaching Style
My teaching style has always been "learner-centered". I've always checked first to see what the students' needs were and what their learning style was before I made lesson plans. I have found that if I find something the student is interested in learning and present it in a way that he/she likes, then the student is more likely to engage in the lesson. I've always used the internet as a resource to find the most creative ways of presenting otherwise boring information. I have also found that a lot of support helps the student in the long-run instead of a "sink or swim" approach. Also, the support helps with self-confidence and the student appreciates that the teacher cares and therefore the student cares about learning too. I have always felt that the student is #1, not the teacher and my students see and appreciate that.