Iryna

Hi!

I am Ira and I have been teaching English for over 15 years.

I am not a native speaker as I come from Ukraine, but English has been my life-partner for decades and I can tell you that it is a very good one. Speaking English opens up a lot of opportunities: career opportunities, most importantly, however it is also very convenient to speak English while you are traveling.

I love grammar, especially I love grammar functional approach to studying and teaching grammar, however the most important thing is speaking as any language is primarily about speaking. There cases when people try to achieve highest levels in grammar, and then scared to talk, because they have that irrational fear of making a mistake. In my humble opinion it is much better to say something incorrectly from grammatical point of view and nevertheless be understood than to stay silent thinking about conjugation, declination, cases, etc., and not be able to convey your thought to your conversation partner. This is exactly the reason why my students talk a lot and grammar comes naturally with some time.

When we talk about the class structure I start with a warm-up activity to let students understand what is going to happen within the next hour, than there is the main body of the class and conclusion. In terms of content there is a so-called 3P structure: Presentation, Practice, Production, which can be seen as a pyramid. The top (the shortest amount of time) is Presentation of relevant material, than there is the middle - Practice and it takes a little bit more time, and finally the bottom - Production - this is what students say, their stories, opinions, etc.

When you can speak English you have the world)
To cut the long story short, if you are interested, drop me a line and we will make English your life-partner as well)