Online French Tutor Melissa

I have experience teaching a wide range of age groups (from 7 - 21), abilities and subjects. I have recently graduated from the University of Oxford, where I received my BA in Modern Languages (French & Russian ab initio), a Masters and a PhD in Russian literature. During my BA I also studied abroad at Yaroslavl' State University in Russia, where I received a diploma in Russian language and literature. I have lectured and tutored in Russian at Oxford, teaching a combination of translation and literary topics, for the last five years. In 2019 I was employed as a Teaching Fellow in Russian covering five Oxford colleges. This role included both teaching and pastoral responsibilities for undergraduate students. As well as university teaching, I have also tutored at 11+, GCSE and A level, and have expertise in UCAS and interview prep.

I have nearly ten years years of teaching experience, both for larger groups and one-on-one, and for a broad range of ages (between 7 and 21). I have taught a combination of English, French and Russian language and literature, and always enjoy the challenge of getting to know a new student's specific abilities and needs. I have supervised undergraduate dissertations on 19th- and 20th-century literary topics and acted as a study mentor/tutor for secondary school and undergraduate students requiring a more hands-on approach to study skills such as organising their time, approaches to vocab learning, or essay-writing technique and structure, or university applications and admissions.

I always tailor my approach to the particular student I am teaching in order to help them reach their full potential, and aim as far as possible to give them an input into the way we tackle a given task. I take a friendly and flexible approach to make reading and learning as enjoyable as possible. I focus on building the student's confidence and helping them to find their own voice in the subject. I also pay attention to understanding mark schemes and working on exam techniques and strategies in order to equip the student to do their very best.

I believe that my own experience of learning a language like Russian from scratch in a relatively short space of time in order to study its literature has given me an understanding of the very real challenge of perfecting the competing skill-sets (reading, speaking, writing, listening) of a modern foreign language, and has made me sensitive to the various difficulties that students might experience.