How the lessons work
The three components of the teaching:-
Traditional grammar teaching is most effective with motivated, intellectually academic, visual learners. It has its place but also its limitations.
Component 2:-
My own course book. This directly links underlying meaning with sentence construction and word usage. It’s an internal document for my own use. It has been refined for use with Hungarians and Chinese students.
Component 3:-
English for Everyone is a highly popular, self-study course. The books range from complete beginner to C1 level and even cover business English. There are separate books dedicated to grammar, idioms and phrases, phrasal verbs, dictionaries and more.
My approach to teaching
I try to teach the minimum grammar necessary. I directly link the fundamental underlying meaning to the constructions English people use (explaining the “why”), and I use repetition of correct English words, expressions and sentences to train the student’s ear to be accustomed to good English. At the end of learning with me, most students have an instinct for correct English. Sometimes they instinctively know the answers to modules that they haven’t yet studied.
My teaching materials are aimed at Hungarians and Chinese. I speak Hungarian and can explain just about any aspect of English grammar and usage in Hungarian. I have been teaching Chinese people for about two years. I don’t speak Chinese except for explaining basic grammar, but I employ professional translation hardware and software (and occasionally an interpreter if necessary).
I incorporate the Dorling Kimberly “English for Everyone” course. This makes self-study extremely easy for the committed student. The book isn’t perfect and so I provide supplementary materials, change the order of teaching certain items, add and omit parts as I teach. At appropriate times, the book is put aside and I teach the relevant section of my personally-developed course.