A-level, GCSE, Higher, Advanced Higher, Nat 5 | Grade Improvement & Essay Skills | 16 Years’ Experience

Find out more about Iain

• When did you develop an interest in your chosen field and in private tutoring?

  I have always enjoyed words. I relished learning German at school (I now can't explain why I didn't continue with it). I thoroughly enjoyed studying Philip Larkin for English at school. Several of his poems left a mark on me and I can still recite them. I began learning Spanish in 2006 and became a translator in 2008.
  
  I first taught while doing my master's degree in 2005. My supervisor, who had taught me the previous year in my senior honours course, was absent for a while, and I was asked to teach a class on Mark Twain. I enjoyed it and became a private tutor for English literature for the first time in 2006.

• Tell us more about the subject you teach, the topics you like to discuss with students (and possibly those you like a little less).

  I teach English literature and language and Spanish as school subjects and English as a foreign language. I like words, their sounds and rhythms, and I like literature. Most especially, I like P.G. Wodehouse, Mark Twain, Bill Bryson, Christopher Hitchens, W.H. Auden, Eduardo Mendoza and Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Foreign language courses - whether Spanish, English or any other - sometimes include rather artificial requirements: how often does anyone really ask where the swimming pool is? And language acquisition shouldn't directly be about becoming an international or global citizen. Most communication is parochial or personal, and language learning allows one to participate in that with new people. It's in doing so that one gains fresh perspectives and insights.

• Did you have any role models; a teacher that inspired you?

  Two history teachers: one, at school, who was unimpressed by the first essay I submitted to him and set out the model that has served me well since; and another, at university, who seemed to have the entire Western canon, plus the history of everything, instantly available in his mind. The former liked to say, "Read hard!" and the latter, "If you don't ask a question, I'll ask you one."

• What do you think are the qualities required to be a good tutor?

  Patience, grace, imagination, the ability to listen before speaking. Some insight into how the student thinks - what impedes their understanding or what would pique their curiosity - often goes much further than any recitation of facts.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your subject or your days at school.

  I went to my senior honours (fourth year) dissertation supervisor for help and he refused. He said, "I'm throwing you out into the middle of the ocean and I'm going to see how you swim ashore." That was the greatest help he could have given me. I try to make my students as independent as possible. Whatever help I give them, I can't write their essays for them, and I can't sit their exams for them. They have to swim ashore.

• What were the difficulties or challenges you faced or still facing in your subject?

  For many great authors in English, classical languages and the mythology of the ancient world were often at least as familiar to them as the history and folklore of their own countries. This is now much rarer, and I have to work to keep up with the allusions that were once second nature to English language authors. When I began learning Spanish, I at first rejected the infamous distinction between ser and estar and almost gave it up one Sunday evening after less than a month. I'm forever glad that I persevered.

• Do you have a particular passion? Is it teaching in general or an element of the subject or something completely different?

  I enjoy teaching in general, even informal teaching such as explaining things to the children in my life. Having something in common that I did not previously share with a student - knowledge of a book, or of a language - is especially satisfying.

• What makes you a Superprof (besides answering these interview questions :-P) ?

  I've had plenty of opportunities to become jaded by teaching, but it hasn't happened.