Tiffany

Hello there! I provide wonderful and valuable skills in English Literature and Language at GCSE Level or below. I achieved a Grade 9 in GCSE English Literature and a Grade 8 in GCSE English Language, alongside a Distinction in GCSE Spoken Language (which involved me presenting my own speech I had crafted to a class of peers). My approach to lessons is engaging, progressive and I am highly attuned to the needs of my students, and putting their hopes and aspirations first whilst helping them to set achievable goals before we start the interesting learning! I am aware that when students take GCSE level English Literature they may struggle with- firstly- remembering key moments in the books/ plays that they study and the quotes also (especially if these are in old English like Shakespearean!) However, I can definitely solve this problem as I have created a cross-referencing approach to tackling this area for improvement in many students: I help students with my own tried and trusted approach of linking the events to the quotes in each chapter/ scene of the literature they study in order to build up those important connections to make them thoroughly confident for their exams! Alongside this, I know that the academic writing style required for the highest grades at GCSE level English Literature can also be a significant challenge, and I would handle this problem in a student by enhancing their abilities by assisting them to become conversant with academic terms firstly (such as the use of the terms of the author's 'constructs' instead of the use of 'characters' for example, and the use of the writer's methods that are implemented either 'purposefully, effectively, consciously or skilfully') and the use of subject-specific terminology (such as a 'comparative adjective' instead of just an 'adjective') and the use of collectively applying embedded quotes to show links between them. I am highly adaptive and listen attentively to assess a student's current abilities by introducing my lessons with short writing tasks by asking them to analyse one or two quotes and write a short paragraph on these in their own written style at present. I must emphasise that I would never knock any student's confidence as I believe this to be not constructive, and so I will only provide constructive and encouraging feedback to ensure they have faith in themselves as they should! Even Einstein didn't get everything right! I know that everyone always has room for improvement, and I would progressively bring this along in my students by studying their abilities and helping these to progress at a rightful pace. Moreover, if I became aware that a student was more concerned with studying and remembering/ writing about poetry, I know a reliable and infallible method to achieve highly in this subject area; students must be able to read and annotate the poems firstly, and be aware of context related to a given poem. I would consciously help to work with them and not for them, in order to establish 'repetitive practice' to master the skills of English. I would always talk through any areas of poetry that a student may be less conversant with, and I would show them how the key to effective poetry analysis is to consider the linguistic devices and structural devices simultaneously, also the mood/tone and the context that can be related to certain parts of the poem which reflects 'wider understanding'. I believe it is pivotal that in comparative questions (when students are expected to analyse the similarities and differences between poems) that poems are associated by theme and language/ structural devices. I also know that for GCSE poetry revision it is crucial that instead of learning the whole of each poem within an anthology, although students should be aware of all poems, but be fully fluent in around 3-4 poems only in order to allow them to deepen their skills and understanding in a manageable and applicable way, which I can assist with in terms of discussing themes and the comparisons between given poems! I would encourage students to do small sections of homework in between lessons, so that we are able to do a 'starter reflection' on their own research and understanding of our current work; this may also include learning 3 new academic words and then applying these to the student's written style. I can effectively teach skills on comprehension, reading and understanding and exam- style responses, alongside assistance in creative writing with a strategic approach of my own, by generating ideas, structures (such as repetition, anaphora, sibilance, assonance and poetic voltas) and figurative language ideas (such as the use of metaphors, similes, personification and imagery). If a student wishes to become outstanding in their understanding of poetry in English Literature, I can teach more academic structural devices also, such as rhyming quatrains, cyclical structures, iambic pentameter and tectrameter and poetic rhyme schemes (such as the Shakespearean sonnet-etc). I hope that this gives you an understanding of the teaching methods that I find exceedingly helpful in order to allow students to progress, and I would like to note that these methods are based on experience as I used these skills to achieve top grades in all my GCSE English examinations! If you would like to see my teaching methods put into practice, please contact me so that I can gain a better understanding of you as a student and I will thoroughly consider your goals/ wishes of academic improvement, and I will ensure a highly beneficial and tailored scheme of work is put into place, whether that be study skills, exam structure, revision or all of these! Just to make you aware, I am proficient in the exam board AQA for English Literature and Eduqas for English Language, however, I can still assist in other exam boards but I may be less aware of those exam structures, so the exam structures stated are the preferable ones, but don't worry if these aren't your allocated exam boards as I would be more than happy to help you anyway to achieve your goals in GCSE English Literature and Language, which I strongly believe you can achieve with a bit or practice!