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Teacher Spotlight: Meet Drew!

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Drew has been a teacher at EC New York since November 2013, and currently teaches both upper intermediate and high intermediate levels.  Drew was kind enough to share some information about his experience as an English teacher, and some fun facts about himself.

drew

Why did you decide to become an English teacher?
I’ve been an educator since 2006 when I was an in-class tutor in a first grade in Brooklyn. Teaching my native language gives me the opportunity to travel and exchange ideas with people of all ages from all over the world.

What do you like most about working at EC?
Of all the things that I love about teaching at EC, what I love most is the academic culture. EC holds its students and teachers to a high academic standard, and as long as that standard is upheld, individual classes have the freedom to use whatever strategies work best for the students in the room together on that day.

Share a funny/rewarding experience/story with a student or class:
I’ll never forget my very first ESL tutoring session back in 2009. It was my first day in a new position at a nonprofit company called the Pursue Your Dream Foundation that connected Japanese and Korean business students with internships at corporations in NYC. My first student was a millionaire heir to his fathers’ giant corporation in Tokyo, and here I was supposed to try to teach him English.

“Tell me about yourself,” I began, throwing that day’s copy of the Wall Street Journal on the table.

He offered his reply slowly. “Ah am a awl-ko-hol-ic.’

I couldn’t have heard him correctly. The first words out of his mouth were ‘I am an alcoholic’?!
“Could you repeat that please?” I asked politely.

“Aye am a awlkoholic.”

My goodness, it’s true. He said he’s an alcoholic. I still couldn’t believe my ears. Luckily, I had a whiteboard in the conference room. I took the pen off of the black board marker and asked him, “Could you please SPELL ‘alcoholic’ for me?”

“Ah yes. W-O-R-K-A-H-O-L-I-C.”

“Oh! You’re a workaholic!

“Ah yes. Aye awlk all de time.”

I’ve been hooked on this job ever since.

What advice would you give to someone learning English?
Read everything. Watch all of the movies and television you possibly can. Speak to everyone in English all of the time.

Fun facts about yourself:
1. I also tutor native-born American grade school students in math and study skills.
2. I’m a multi-instrumentalist and write original music.
3. My middle name is my grandmother’s maiden name.

 

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