John Barbour

Hi, I’m a qualified and highly experienced English teacher living in Bristol, UK.

- Speaking fluency

- Exam preparation: IELTS, CAE, FCE, Functional Skills

- Business & Technical English

- 15 years experience teaching adults, teenagers and children

METHODOLOGY of my lessons:

Each learner has their own specific needs so the initial conversation is focused on how I can help you improve in those areas. We look at where you are in your life and how improving your English will help you you progress in whatever you want to do. We agree a few specific targets to work towards and how I can best help you progress quickly. We can add to these targets or modify them as we go along.

Most students wants to improve their speaking fluency and communication skills, so I try to to enable them to speak as much as possible in a relaxed and enjoyable way, while I give feedback on key language points to help them improve. This could be pronunciation, sentence stress and emphasis, vocabulary, communication skills like adding more detail and extending your sentences, or expressing things in a different way.

I will often use focused speaking activities like role-play or imagined dialogue in order to give life to what we are learning and practising.

Key vocabulary, phrases and structures are noted and shared during each lesson, and students will often use these in writing tasks between sessions in order to expand and improve their language.

The first session is always free and lasts about 45 minutes. The aim for us to get to know each other and see each other, and to get an idea of your learning needs. We discuss how I can best help you to improve and progress quickly, to get where you want to be with your language.

We create together a shared document with specific targets and ways I can help you achieve them.

Also this initial session serves to make sure the technical side of our communication work smoothly (I use Zoom for online sessions).

PRICING:

If you choose to continue then lessons are priced at:

INDIVIDUAL: £19 per hour or £16 per hour if you pay for 10 lessons in advance.

GROUP: £7 per hour or £5 per hour if you pay for 10 lessons in advance (minimum 4 students per group).

Lessons are 60 minutes in duration, and we agree best the time and day together.