Learn more about where it all started.

Hello, I’m Amanda.
The Creator of Exploring English

I first started tutoring in 2018 after gaining my CELTA qualification. I began tutoring school age children in maths and English. Later I began tutoring adults who were learning English as a foreign language.  Next I started exploring creative writing and GCSE preparation. English is a such a broad and interesting subject that I found myself unable to confine myself to a single area.

How did I get here?  Well I have been interested in teaching English as a foreign language since  I was studying Sociology at university. I took some online TEFL courses intending to go travelling when I graduated. I wanted to spend time in Egypt teaching English and improving my Arabic (which I had been studying alongside my degree).  Sadly, as sometimes happens, life went in another direction.

In 2011 I joined the prison service as a Prison Officer and later moved into the Probation Service. Unusual choice perhaps, but in many ways these roles were still about helping people and helping others has always been something that I have found fulfilling. This also gave me an opportunity to develop my communication skills and learn to work in difficult situations.  These skills certainly help be able to work with learners from all kinds of backgrounds.

I use my own experiences of learning languages and text analysis to help shape what I tutor and when creating online courses.  I have always found the traditional method of teaching language in school to be poor at achieving what I consider to be the primary goal of such learning: having the ability to communicate in that language. In ESL work I focus on providing lots of opportunity to communicate to build everyday skills. From there you can build in grammar and more traditional learning material.

My GCSE and Creative Writing work also focuses on skills.  Building up knowledge and key skills in stages to allow understanding to develop. I have always found knowing why I am learning something has helped me engage with things, even if the only reason I might be learning it is for an exam. Learning reasons and context can also help build the ability to connect topics from different areas together enabling deeper analysis when working at higher levels.