Some of you may have been lucky enough to be taught by Max Mazzoli. If you haven’t, here is a bit more information about him!
I was born between Milan and Florence – probably an accident, my mum would say – then I was ‘transplanted into west London, not far from Peter Pan’s Kensington Garden. In London I experienced a second childhood and a precocious adolescence, overwhelmed by new enchanting words and exotic idioms, not to mention the need to learn geography, in order to place on the map all the cosmopolitan encounters that have forged my intimate being. Teaching English was the logical consequence after a magical time spent learning it. Whether I’ve learnt it or not, I’ll leave it to you to decide. Or maybe English has just “happened” to me (just quoting Chomsky)
I have accrued many years of experience in teaching. I have taught in Primary schools in London, English GCSE, English Language and Literature A levels, Philosophy A levels, Pre-Masters Foundation courses in 6th Form Colleges, Italian at King’s College (Cambridge University), and at UCL (University College London).
In the last 10 years I have enjoyed preparing foreign students to take their IELTS exam in order to access English speaking universities. I have also worked with asylum seekers in London and with American teenagers as a Tourist Guide and Tour Manager around Italy.
At EC I teach EFL/ESOL (PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC), EAP (IELTS)
I have worked and taught in London, in Italy and in Turkey and now in our prestigious Cambridge. I like travelling and, among other places, I have been to South America, the USA, China, India, Russia, Mongolia, Korea, Japan and Malaysia. I speak Italian and Spanish fluently and play the guitar and the piano (less ‘fluently’ J ). I also like painting (but – attention – only as an amateurish hobby: i.e. I’m pretentiously rubbish at it). Still on the artistic side, I have published 7 collections of poetry (hoping for the Nobel).
– I consider myself a learner even more than a teacher.
– My colleagues will tell you that I can be quite annoying. I can only agree. What can you do? To each one, their own skills.
– My students will tell you that after having experienced my classes, they have grown critically and emotionally. Don’t believe it? Just ask them.
My heroes: my Louise, the Beatles, Pablo Neruda, Vinicius De Moraes, Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Dante, Marcel Proust, Godot (I’m still waiting), Socrates, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Kandinsky, James Joyce, Pelè, my children, and my students. The list is still growing – (My colleague Tancred Penny has been short-listed).
I love having a cappuccino and being a flaneur in foreign cities. C’est tout. A bientôt.
Xie xie for your attention. Wo dè tiān ā ! 我的天啊 ! have I said too much?