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Simon Brown

English

Native

French

Vietnamese

Italian

Other

Spanish

From United Kingdom

Living in Manchester, United Kingdom

CELTA qualified teacher with over 11 years of experience, specialising in teaching IELTS. I am a 45 year old father living with my wife and 2 children in Sale, near Manchester, in the UK. I met my wife in Vietnam, where I first started teaching, about 11 years ago and we moved to the UK last August. I gained a CELTA from the Manchester Academy of English in 2013 and moved to Vietnam a few months later, where I started teaching general English at a busy language school just outside Ho Chi Minh City. After attending various workshops, I progressed onto teaching business English and IELTS preparation. Since then, while comfortable teaching any of these, I have become a specialist at teaching IELTS preparation, particularly with the speaking part of the exam, which I have extensive and detailed knowledge of. I really like to focus on communication in my classes because that, of course, is the whole point of learning a language. While accuracy with pronunciation and grammar is important, I find the best place to start is by building a bank of vocabulary as this gives students the basis from which they can communicate so that they can build their confidence. Focusing on improving the range and flexibility of grammar structures the student can use along with accuracy of the basics of pronunciation. From there, it becomes easier to develop the sophistication of the language used.