David Jones

I have a BA in English Language and Literature and a CTEFLA qualification in teaching English as a second language. When I graduated I worked as a language and literature tutor for a year before starting a commercial career in training, sales and marketing. That's led me to prepare training materials for students at all levels, including management and team-building. I also had a four-year career in eastern Europe teaching English to Russian students of all ages. This was an intense experience, as I often visited small towns that had been built solely for the purpose of extracting oil or gas, and needed to teach employees to read the English language health and safety manuals as quickly as possible to cut out the very real danger of serious workplace injury. I worked around the closk to prioritise workplace vocabulary and syntax, and with a base level of safety achieved, built out from there. More recently I've delivered English language classes to people of many nationalities who are new arrivals in my home city, and in some cases I've been able to improve their English comprehension to a point where they've successfully applied for jobs. In 2023 my most significant teaching experience has been at a pupil referral unit, where I've delivered one to one support to teenagers with conditions including ADHD. To give you an idea of how I connect with students, one of the English literature lessons was on "Macbeth". The student, a 15 year old boy with severe ADHD, had shown no interest in literature despite the best efforts of numerous teachers. I found that he was a Star Wars fan and built a lesson around the idea that Macbeth has many similarities with Darth Vader. For the first time he took an interest in literature and can now quote from the play. When I teach I tap into the interests of the individual learner to make the material accessible to them. I am also a published author, have written over a thousand published articles and have written and published books. I'm an experienced creative writing coach and teenagers in one of the groups I work with are currently working on a collection of short stories that I will publish when complete. I'm happy to offer this additional service free of charge to students who want to become published authors. It's a huge confidence booster and a great addition to a CV.