Page 3 - PTC Catalogue November 2020

MRS COPSEY: A MESSAGE FROM THE TUTOR
I am an English Literature academic, and am at present writing my PhD thesis on British romantic poetry at the University of Kent. I completed my Bachelor’s degree in 2010 with first class honours at University College London, and a Master of Studies degree at the University of Oxford. I have taught English for IGCSE and A Level as a private tutor since 2012 and have experience in tutoring students in English for Oxbridge and Russell Group university interviews.
I have wide-ranging knowledge of the demands of English Literature at these levels, and have been successful in either helping my IGCSE /A Level students to achieve their target grades where they are aiming high, or raising attainment by at least a grade where they found they required extra-curricular support. In my tutoring in this subject, I support the student to develop their close-reading skills for poetry and prose to give them the confidence to respond to a new text without the support of the teacher’s framework. I work with a dialectical approach, encouraging my student’s ability to articulate their thoughts, intervening by helping them to refine those thoughts into arguments, and working with them to improve their writing to elucidate their ideas. I am a stickler for excellent grammar and high-level vocabulary, which in this setting can be taught quite easily. I am also able to give students an idea of the demands of university level reading and writing which is necessary for the top grades at A Level as well as being able to show them a way to build on their skills which will enable them to get to that level with self-confidence. In this way, I am able to provide in-depth training for pupils following the English Literature IGCSE and A Level curricula. I am familiar with the prescribed texts, and will be training pupils in Songs of Ourselves for IGCSE, alongside the set prose and Shakespearean texts.
Since completing a CELTA (Cambridge certificate in English language teaching to adults) in 2010 I have worked widely in EFL as both a teacher and lecturer. I have taught English for business purposes, English for IELTS and academic purposes, English for the Cambridge Exams PET, FCE and CAE and English for general purposes. I have taught in a variety of learning environments as a teacher with Inlingua Normandie, Regent Language School of English Oxford and as a lecturer at Prince Mohammed bin Fahd University in Saudi Arabia.
During my time at Inlingua and Regent Language School I worked with smaller classes and as a one-to-one instructor. Whilst classes benefit from the ability to encourage communication in small group and pair work, one-to-one lessons can be more intense, but benefit from the teacher’s ability to meet the student’s needs directly. In this case, as learning a language is not a linear process, and will sometimes correspond to the level of confidence the student has at any particular time, it is possible to meet the student’s needs for consolidation at exactly the right moment, as well as being able to respond to the student’s ability to make rapid progress with vocabulary and grammar development. It is to this end that I carefully prepare and adjust my courses according to the requirements of the student, staying closely attuned to the attainment of my students at individual level and tracking their progress to ensure that they are able to build their knowledge and skills. I have experience with nearly all English for general purposes textbooks by the major publishers, but find that Cutting Edge, Headway, National Geographic and Face2Face to be amongst the best for the general learner.