My name is Martin and I am a professional instructor of English as a second language who has been teaching non-native English speakers receptive and productive skills needed to function in various English speaking environments.
I started teaching the language in Prague, Czech Republic in 2004. There I worked for a language school, which had language teaching contracts with several major companies across the country. As a member of their teaching staff, I was able to connect with professionals from various fields and industries and teach various heads of departments, spokespersons, stock traders, auditors, etc.
In 2007, I completed an intensive course for teachers of English and received the Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) validated by the University of Cambridge, which is the most widely recognized English teaching qualification in the world and most commonly requested by global language institutions. During the course, I mastered a fair number of useful techniques with respect to the teacher’s as well as the student’s approach to learning.
This might have sparked my interest in pursuing my teaching career even further. Soon after my arrival in Vancouver, British Columbia as a new resident of Canada in 2010, I landed a teaching position at St. George International College, a local language school. It was a great working environment and I truly enjoyed working with all my students there. During this work experience, I felt I wanted to deepen my knowledge of concepts and principles of learning processes and that it could give me better understanding of my student’s needs and new refined approaches to language instruction. I went back to university and completed a joint degree in psychology at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, BC) and Disability and Applied Behaviour Analysis (D-ABA) at Douglas College (Coquitlam, BC).
During my last semester at Douglas College in the winter of 2014, I landed another teaching position, this time at VGC International College, one of the best language institutes in Greater Vancouver area, which was a much larger school than the previous one employing as many as 30-40 English teachers. It offered a variety of general English courses including ones focused on travel industry or business, to name a few.
In the spring of 2018, I started working as an English teacher in Slovakia, where I have been since. I teach English to students of several schools here and have a number of private students as well. Since October 2021, I have been teaching English online to students from other countries of the world.
Apart from teaching, I have experience in working in a number of other fields and industries, including tourism and travel, hospitality, logistics, tax consulting, project management, and I even worked as a librarian during my school years. 🙂
As far as my education goes, besides my Psychology and Disability and Applied Behaviour Analysis studies, I had received two associate degrees, one in Tourism & Travel Management {in Houston, Texas) and the other in Communications / Journalism (in Pasadena, Texas).
What are some of my endorsed skills:
Here are some of the skills I have had commonly endorsed by my students, colleagues, language school managers, and directors of studies:
- ability to explain English grammar properly with adequate concept checking questions (CCQs)
- ability to provide very useful examples for students’ swift comprehension of the discussed language related phenomena
- ability to stay focused on what is necessary and on what the student really needs and wants
- ability to incorporate the right mix for improving receptive (reading & listening) as well as productive (speaking & writing) skills
- showing willingness to devote personal time to preparation of tailor-made material for students
- providing useful information / material and advice for self-learning
- giving a fair amount of attention to functional language, register, and other essential aspects of the language
Who do I teach?
Individuals and groups. School-age children and young adults as well as adults who wish to learn the language for various reasons.
What do I teach?
- General and professional English of all levels (A1-C2)
- General English is designed for those who would like to improve their general receptive and productive skills through the use of various materials (textbooks, graded readers, multimedia, internet articles, etc.). It starts with an initial assessment test and finishes with evaluation of their acquired skills after a specified period of time to measure progress. S.M.A.R.T. goals are set.
- Professional English is for those who wish to prepare for communication in a particular industry (law, medical, sport, etc.).
- English exam preparation (TOEFL iBT TOEFL PBT, IELTS, CELPIP, KET, PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC)
- Exam preparation lessons will help you gain much-needed confidence to successfully pass an English exam of your choice.
- Focused (grammar / vocabulary / topic) conversational lessons
- Free flowing conversational lessons (selected topics)