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Growing up in Kazakhstan, I was surrounded by family, friends and colleagues speaking different languages (Kazakh, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, German) which, in retrospect, started my lifelong fascination with foreign languages, communication and language acquisition.

Over the years I have had a varied career in teaching, translating, interpreting, finance and accounting within international organizations based in Kazakhstan, the US and England but working with clients located in various parts of the globe.

Since 2013 I have been working as a teacher of Russian at Wycombe Abbey, and I have recently been appointed as a GCSE Russian Examiner for Pearson Edexcel Exam Board.

One to one tutoring feels particularly rewarding to me as I enjoy creating personalised programs which enable my students to greatly improve their language skills.

The main goal of language learning is to be able to communicate well with people of a different culture. That is why I follow the communicative approach in my teaching whilst developing all four major language skills 鈥� listening, speaking, reading and writing. The lesson content is chosen based on vocabulary frequency, topics of interest to a particular student and grammar points that might require additional practice. Prioritising high-frequency words helps gradually expand the students鈥� vocabulary to include mid and low-frequency words as their language skills develop. Reading and discussing texts about the topics of interest help maintain motivation and curiosity.

I am constantly amazed to see my students鈥� confidence in using more complex foreign language structures grow, which in turn gives them freedom to access various content or communicate with people who are native speakers of my students鈥� chosen language.

Languages, history and literature are my lifelong interests. To me they are windows into the soul of a particular nation, and combined, they help us understand its national character. Reading literature in the original is truly enriching. Reading foreign literature in translation challenges my views and introduces me to different perspectives on common themes.

I continue learning languages. For the past 4 years I have been learning Korean which opened a completely different world to me. Being able to speak English, Russian, French, German and now Korean (to varying degrees of fluency) certainly helps when travelling around the world which I also very much enjoy.