Part-Time Teachers and Private Tutors

DAVID,
from Ireland, is the principal of Ascend and a CELTA qualified English teacher, who specialises in teaching IELTS. David has extensive experience teaching IELTS preparation courses in Singapore. In class, David maximises the students speaking and writing time by using past IELTS exam papers to ensure they understand what the examiners are looking for in the real test. David’s IELTS class size is limited to 15 students to ensure that all of his students receive individual attention. Studying in a small class also allows David the time to give comprehensive feedback to his students to ensure they get value for money and most importantly of all to ensure they improve their IELTS score.

Esté Johnson,
is a native of Johannesburg, South Africa. Esté has been
teaching English as a first and second language for 30 years in South
Africa, the Middle East and most recently in Singapore. Este is passionate
about her teaching. In her conversation classes, she makes her students
respond through her liberal sense of humor. Este firmly believes that the
key to a successful class is building the confidence and trust of the
students. Este also encourages her students to be vocal so she can help
spot any issues they have with their pronunciation and grammar.

Fiona Sinnamon's Fiona Sinnamon
Fiona Sinnamon is from Australia, where she worked as a Public Defence lawyer for many years. She also has significant experience in public-sector management. Fiona qualified as a teacher (Bachelor of Education) in Australia in 2000, and is also CELTA trained. She taught English in Australia and the USA before relocating to Singapore in 2007.
Fiona prefers to teach adults, and particularly enjoys Conversation and Business English classes. She likes to meet and engage with people from all countries and cultures, and has a friendly and encouraging personal style.

Roger Anderson
Originating from the north of Scotland in the UK, Roger has spent the past 28 years in various parts of Asia - the last 18 of these in Singapore - and holds a Cambridge CELTA and an honours degree in Chemistry and Maths. Although a relative newcomer to the English teaching profession, having spent the early part of his career in industry and business, he has taught English and Business Studies in Thailand and Singapore since making the move. Having been a very shy French student himself, Roger's particular concern in class is giving students the confidence to use English in the real world.

Aziza Rawat,
a British citizen, is an award winning, multi-skilled British designer who holds a CELTA and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Visual Communication Design. Her creative career spans almost a decade starting from her hometown London and continuing in Hong Kong and finally in Singapore where she worked as a designer before pursuing her teaching career. Combining her passions for teaching and traveling, Aziza has previously taught in Indonesia at various tsunami relief care centres and schools. Her teaching portfolio includes private tuition, conversational and pronunciation classes from starter to advanced levels of English. In her classes, Aziza believes, in combining a creative and artistic approach to teaching.

Isabelle Hay Campbell's Isabelle Hay Campbell
is from the UK, where she worked in International Market Research, both in consumer and healthcare, for a number of years. She has always had an international focus, having lived in the US (for 10 years), Germany and Italy, as well as the UK. She holds a BA Hons in German and Italian from the University of Leeds and is bilingual in French and English. Learning languages is her passion but also enables her to understand the challenges of taking on a new language. Isabelle is CELTA trained and enjoys sharing her enthusiasm for English in the stimulating multi-cultural environment of Singapore. She believes that learning should be fun and productive, so as to feel the sense of achievement of being able to improve communication in another language.

Annetha Ayyavoo
has recently completed her Masters in Education in the English Language at Nanyang Technological University. The completion of her Bachelor of Behavioural Science degree from Monash University has been a thought provoking process. Coupled with her Diploma in Physical Education, specialising in Physical Education and English from the College of Physical Education (NTU), Annetha embarked on enriching minds and bodies. During her 8-year teaching experience with local and foreign schools, Annetha was able to interact and assist learners to develop from their language weakness through positive socialization. Her experiences exhibit her ability to be flexible and to acclimatize to many challenging opportunities. In addition, her experience as a writer, exposure to the modelling industry and ability to counsel international students have enhanced her communication and interpersonal skills. She enjoys an interactive class and believes that role-play is an effective teaching strategy. She is confident in providing different opportunities for multicultural learners to facilitate into education, definitely, with an element of fun!

Nevin Blumer,
is from western Canada and has recently completed his Masters in Applied Linguistics at the National University of Singapore. He additionally holds a Bachelor of Education (U.Vic) and a Bachelor of Management (U.Lethbridge). He has been teaching EFL in a variety of capacities for 14 years, but particularly in IELTS and Business English training. Nevin has lectured, published textbooks, developed school curriculum and trained teachers in these two areas extensively in Japan, Singapore and China. He takes an eclectic, individualized approach to his teaching and works particularly hard to have students become confident, goal driven language learners.

Thomas Robinson,
is from the Midwest USA and is a permanent resident of Singapore. He holds a B.A and M.A in Sociology from Florida Atlantic University. He has also received teacher training from both the British Council and Emroy University’s teacher training programme. Tom has been teaching English in Singapore since 2001. He is the co-author of two journal articles and has written book reviews for Singapore’s TODAY newspaper. Although Tom has taught all age levels, he prefers teaching adult students. In his free time, Tom enjoys reading novels, biographies and works of non-fiction in a wide variety of disciplines.

Duane Harris,
is from California, USA. He holds a CMSC from JFK University and a B.A. Psychology, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Duane has been an American Sign Language interpreter for many people, including former president George Bush Sr. Duane has also delivered corporate training for a major American hotel chain on goal setting and teamwork. Duane has 10 years’ experience as an ESL tutor. He worked in Seoul, Korea, for two years at the Youth Educational Services Academy. Duane has been teaching English in Singapore for seven years. He particularly enjoys teaching conversational English to adult learners.

Ms Mahaletchumi,
gr

aduated with an MBA from the University of Central Queensland, Australia. She is a qualified teacher from the National Institute of Education, Singapore specialising in Linguistics. Her 10 years of academic career comprises of her knowledge and work experience with the Ministry of Education, Singapore as a Teacher & English Academic Head as well as a Business Lecturer with various tertiary institutions where her areas of specialisation includes Marketing, International Business, Creativity & Innovation, Organisational Behaviour, Strategic Management and Operations. Currently, she divides her time between teaching English as a Second Language to foreign students and Business undergraduate studies. Mahaletchumi's zeal and enthusiasm for the development of the students' academic and cognitive learning is reflective of her skills and understanding of the needs of the learners. In the course of her career, she has developed materials and trained in the areas of Business English, Business Communication & Presentation Skills, Leadership & Teamwork, Customer Service and is a certified Train-the-Trainer. As an advent for continous learning, she passionately pursues pedagogical research in teaching and learning, cross cultural studies and e-learning. In addition, she enjoys travelling, motoring, amateur photography, visual and performing arts along with literature and world music.

Christina Derrick,
is from Manchester in England but she hasn’t lived there for the last nine years. She has been living in Singapore since June 2007, before moving to Singapore Christina lived in Tokyo for nine years teaching English to students of all ages and levels in one of Japan's biggest English Schools. She also managed the school she worked at which involved training new teachers how to teach English and ensuring a high degree of student satisfaction within the school. This experience therefore enables Christina to adapt lessons to students needs and to bring a level of 'fun' into the classroom both of which are important skills for a teacher to possess!

Claudine Cerrini,
is a British citizen who holds a Degree in French and Italian from The University of London. She has been living in Singapore for the past year. She has experience in teaching all levels of English both to international organisations and individuals looking to learn English in their spare time. Having studied foreign languages, she understands how difficult and frustrating it can be! She therefore believes in building a good relationship with all of her students, so that they look forward to their English class. Claudine varies her style of teaching to suit the needs of each class. She believes in tailoring the course as much as possible in order to create a stimulating, imaginative and fun environment in which the students can learn.

Khyati Kapai,
a Singaporean citizen, has been teaching with Ascend since 2004. She holds a TESOL Certificate from Trinity College London, a post graduate Certificate in Education (Secondary Level/Business & Economics) from the Institute of Education, University of London and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Before coming to Singapore, Khyati worked as a financial analyst in the Equity Capital Markets Team, Citigroup, Hong Kong, and also worked on IPOs and other equity financing for Asian corporate clients with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Hong Kong.

Tatiana Osipova,
is a qualified and experienced English teacher having been the Director of Studies for four years at English First School, Vladivostok, Russia. Prior to that, she had nine years of working experience as an English teacher and participated in training seminars for teachers. Tatiana received her Diploma in English Philology qualification from the Far Eastern State University and obtained her CELTA from the British Council Singapore in November 2003. Since then Tatiana has been teaching English in Singapore at all levels and to all ages; she is particularly comfortable teaching elementary and intermediate levels. In her classes Tatiana strives to create high standards of teaching quality and customer service.