Sophia
University of Oxford
Classics and Modern Languages (French)
Graduate
DBS
11About Me
I am an extremely thorough and committed tutor with a tailored approach for every student. This includes especially crafted sheets of French idioms and vocab to ensure a thorough and authentic absorption of the language. My individualised approaches allow me to tailor tuition to a student’s personality, ensuring that the pace and focus of the lessons is uniquely suitable for them. As someone who speaks four languages I enjoy making cross-references between different languages. I speak fluent Russian and conversational Italian and love introducing students to the comparisons of languages and to their history.
Elsewhere I am a writer and a professional classical music critic. I have contributed to The Guardian, Bachtrack, musicOMH, BroadwayWorld, BBC Music Magazine and OperaWire, and conducted operatic research around the world for The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography. This richly detailed account of Maria Callas’ life was published to coincide with her one hundredth birthday in December 2023, and is currently a finalist in the 2024 ARSC Awards for Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical Music.
My teaching style
It varies according to the student! I can go turbo-paced but am also happy to take my teaching slow and steady.
My first step with any student for either French or Latin is establishing how much they know in that subject. After that I select which topics to cover on the basis of what they feel most comfortable with to ease them into a comfortable familiarity with French and/or Latin. My lesson plans are based on my individualised knowledge of the student and what I feel needs to be revised, as well as how much new information I feel the student is ready to take on.
My lessons typically proceed in this structure:
1) I orally test the student on vocab and grammar they were set to learn for this lesson.
2) If the student hasn’t submitted homework for marking prior to the lesson, I mark it and we over it. If they have and there are no major errors, we briefly go over them. If there have been mistakes that suggest a lack of understanding, we revise the previous grammar topic(s).
3) We learn a new grammatical topic and/or new vocab. Older students are expected to learn vocab without my help, but for French I will occasionally go over pronunciation notes with them to help with their speaking.
4) For French, we do listening, speaking or reading practice. For Latin, we do translation practice.
My past experience
My experience includes the following:
– I have single-handedly taught a Year 8 student French GCSE. Since his school lesson schedule didn’t permit him to study French there, he and I were the only two responsible for his French GCSE grade – an 8 – which he achieved as a Year 9 student this summer.
– I have likewise single-handedly taught a Year 8 student the Latin GCSE curriculum during a period when the subject couldn’t fit into her timetable. The student made tremendous progress in the course of 11 months, to the extent that we had covered all the grammar required for the OCR Latin GCSE course by the end of her lessons.
– Two years ago I was able to raise the grade of a dyslexic student predicted a 5 to the final achievement of an 8 (this Year 11 student began studying with me in March, two months before his GCSE exams).
– Last year I lifted the grade of a high-functioning autistic student from a predicted 3 to a 5 for the Foundation Paper after only six months of lessons.
– It took me ten months of once-weekly lessons to raise the French level of a girl in 11th Grade at an American School abroad from zero knowledge of French to very advanced IB-level language. After that the student no longer needed my help.
– I have helped several 13+ scholarship applicants improve their grades for both Latin and French in the run up to exams, including one Key Stage 3 student who won Eton’s 13+ King’s Scholarship this year. Being closely familiar with the challenging curriculum of the Eton King’s Scholarship papers, I understand the extreme demands and offer an exigent pace and grammar-loaded syllabus to prepare for them.
My Proudest Achievements
Helping a dyslexic student get an 8 after being predicted a 5 in only three months of tuition.
I teach
- 11+
- 13+
- 13+ Tutors
- 16+
- James Allen's Girls' School Admissions JAGS
- Alleyn's
- Dulwich College School Admissions
- Eltham College School Admissions
- Eton College Admissions
- Winchester College School Admissions
- Westminster Admissions
My Results and Achievements
- Raised grade of dyslexic student from a 5 to an 8
- Helped student win 13+ King's Scholarship
- Taught a student with no school lessons to an 8
- Taught IB student from 0 to a 6 at the IB
- Got other students 8s and 9s