| Name | Alan B. Recommended |
|---|---|
| City | Montréal, QC |
| Teaching | English |
| Native Language | English |
| Originally From | Canada |
| Working With | Youth, Adults, Groups |
| Levels I Teach | Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced |
| Lessons Take Place | My Home/Office, Learner's Home or Work, Public Place, Online |
| Hourly Rate | C$60 |
Native English speaker with a PhD, two master's degrees and thirty years of experience in language schools, private instruction, corporate instruction, university literature courses and dissertation supervision. I can help you speak more fluently, but I can also help you write at the university level and produce clear, accurate and convincing prose. I can also help you through the maze of dissertation writing in the humanities. In a time when advisors are notoriously unhelpful, I can walk you through your thesis or dissertation and make sure that your arguments are as airtight and elegant as they can be. I can be the guide you need through the thickets of academic writing.
PhD in Comparative Literature (Vanderbilt University), Master's degree in English (Concordia University), Masters degree in Comparative Literature (McGill University), Bachelor's degree in English (Concordia University), Teaching Certificate (McGill University)
Thirty years of experience teaching English as a Foreign Language, and English as a Second Language. Taught for several language schools, including Vanderbilt University's English for Internationals Program and University of Montreal's Summer program. Currently teaching at Concordia University's English Department and teaching corporate clients for L'Envol des Langues, Montreal's largest language school. I can help you at all skill levels. I can teach you to be more fluent in speaking. I can improve your vocabulary and your writing skills. At higher levels, I can offer thesis supervision and consultation, especially in the humanities. For university and CEGEP students, I can also teach you how to write effective and elegant arguments and how to support them with strong evidence.
The method varies with the student. Some students need a structured approach that touches on the basics of grammar and vocabulary, while other students learn most quickly when they have the chance to speak. But speaking will reveal the areas of weakness that we can then focus on in future sessions. Most students have a few specific hurtles that are difficult to surmount. I can find those areas of difficulty and guide the student through them. I also provide a very relaxed, fun, funny and enjoyable atmosphere that allows students to take risks, make mistakes and speak freely. If you are working on more advanced issues like essays, theses and dissertations, I focus on finding the argument you want to make, helping you to make the best form of that argument and offering you the guidance that will let you write your idea in simple and clean language that gets your point across.
All evenings are possible. During the summer, my schedule is fairly open in the afternoons.
When the pandemic passes, downtown Montreal, but for the foreseeable future I can teach by Zoom, Skype or Google Hangouts anywhere in the world.
