From United StatesLiving in San Francisco, United States (05:34 UTC-08:00)
American English teacher: compassionate, caring, and fun!
About Me
italki teacher since May 1, 2022
My name is Sydney, and I’m an English teacher here on italki.
I’m originally from San Francisco, California, and I recently lived in Paris, France for a year and half while earning my master's degree in French literature.
My personal interests include music, food and wine, reading, television, and of course foreign languages. I like to think that I’m a pretty open-minded person, and I enjoy learning more about my students’ interests and diverse backgrounds and lifestyles.
Should you want to book a lesson but you are not seeing a time slot that suits your needs, please feel free to contact me about finding a lesson time that works for both of us. I hope to hear from you soon!
Me as a Teacher
I’m a lifelong learner of foreign languages, so I'm very familiar with the thrills, and the challenges, of immersing yourself in a new language. It's been great to be on the teaching side of the learning process the last few years, and I love sharing my native language with students who are curious and passionate about the English language and Anglophone cultures.
My goal is to give my students the tools needed for effective and functional communication, which requires clarity of meaning. For more advanced students, we can work towards expressiveness, which means that you are also sharing your personality through nuanced language and devices like idioms, slang, tone, and register.
My lessons & teaching style
I believe that conversational practice is essential to language acquisition. Even during lessons where we work on written skills, we will still communicate about these subjects through our conversational skills.
I structure our conversational practice around free, online resources that are created for native speakers. This means you’re using real-life content to practice your English (like news articles, blog posts, and social media) which helps you get really comfortable with how native speakers actually communicate.
I think the learning environment has to be warm, open, and welcoming. I prioritize active listening so that each of my students feels safe and comfortable.
My teaching material
PDF file
Text Documents
Presentation slides/PPT
Audio files
Image files
Video files
Articles and news
Graphs and charts
5.0
Rating
13
Students
88
Lessons
100%
Attendance
100%
Response
5.0
Rating
13
Students
88
Lessons
100%
Attendance
100%
Response
English Lessons
Trial Lesson
11 lessons completed
USD 10.00+
Conversational English in a compassionate setting
B1 - C2Conversation Practice77 lessons completed
USD 15.00+
Package with 20% off
Cour d'anglais débutant pour les francophones !
A1 - A2General0 lessons completed
USD 15.00+
Package with 20% off
Availability
Based on your timezone (UTC+00:00)
5 Reviews
Ivan Khovavko
4 English lessons
Sydney is a very good teacher. She is positive person, knows how to keep up the conversation even if the topic is not in her circle of interests. She has excellent pronunciation, she prepares classes on topics of interest to the student.
Jan 26, 2023
Artem
9 English lessons
Nice!
Oct 12, 2022
Ben AJ
14 English lessons
I appreciate the exchange with Sydney. She gave me much to ponder with the questions she asked and the responses she provided. As a native speaker myself, I did not engage her to impart to me instruction in English, such as she might have done for someone for whom English was not the first language (as it was for me). Instead, I wanted to obtain her advice on a specialized literary project I had begun. That said, she is, in my assessment of the matter, an expert on the nuanced use of English; she is linguistically gifted (as you can tell from her introductory video, which shows her speaking fluently in French); and can adapt her lessons to meet the needs of beginners in English. She is compassionate, sensitive, and empathetic, and I highly recommend her.
Jul 15, 2022
Rodrigo Salles Bueno
11 English lessons
Tive a aula experimental com a Sydney, e acredito que ela possa atender as minhas necessidades. Recomendada.