Liya

Liya is a native Russian speaker with over 20 years global teaching experience. She offers tailored Russian and EFL lessons. She also teaches at a top UK independent school and serves as a GCSE Russian examiner for Pearson Edexcel.

Liya teaches: English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Russian

About Liya:

Experience
Biography
Approach to Tutoring
When not tutoring

Experience

- GCSE Russian

- A Level Russian

- Business Russian

- Cambridge FCE (First Certificate in English)

- ESOL Skills for Life (English for Speakers of Other Languages)

- EFL / ESL / EAL – English as Foreign / Second / Additional Language

Having taught both Russian and English as Foreign Languages in Kazakhstan, the USA, England, and to students of different nationalities online, I developed methods of effective instruction based on clear lesson structure, adapting my teaching to respond to the individual goals, strengths and needs of each student, as well as building my students’ confidence beyond their “comfort zone”.

Using Coaching in Education (Graydin Model) approach, I facilitate self-directed learning and personal growth of my students.

Biography

Growing up in Kazakhstan, I was surrounded by family, friends and colleagues speaking different languages (Kazakh, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, German) which, in retrospect, started my lifelong fascination with foreign languages, communication and language acquisition.

Over the years I have had a varied career in teaching, translating, interpreting, finance and accounting within international organizations based in Kazakhstan, the US and England but working with clients located in various parts of the globe.

Since 2013 I have been working as a teacher of Russian at Wycombe Abbey, and I have recently been appointed as a GCSE Russian Examiner for Pearson Edexcel Exam Board.

Approach to Tutoring

One to one tutoring feels particularly rewarding to me as I enjoy creating personalised programs which enable my students to greatly improve their language skills.

The main goal of language learning is to be able to communicate well with people of a different culture. That is why I follow the communicative approach in my teaching whilst developing all four major language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing. The lesson content is chosen based on vocabulary frequency, topics of interest to a particular student and grammar points that might require additional practice. Prioritising high-frequency words helps gradually expand the students’ vocabulary to include mid and low-frequency words as their language skills develop. Reading and discussing texts about the topics of interest help maintain motivation and curiosity.

I am constantly amazed to see my students’ confidence in using more complex foreign language structures grow, which in turn gives them freedom to access various content or communicate with people who are native speakers of my students’ chosen language.

When not tutoring

Languages, history and literature are my lifelong interests. To me they are windows into the soul of a particular nation, and combined, they help us understand its national character. Reading literature in the original is truly enriching. Reading foreign literature in translation challenges my views and introduces me to different perspectives on common themes.

I continue learning languages. For the past 4 years I have been learning Korean which opened a completely different world to me. Being able to speak English, Russian, French, German and now Korean (to varying degrees of fluency) certainly helps when travelling around the world which I also very much enjoy.