Nick

AS A TUTOR
Are you looking for some extra help to meet your target grades, or thinking of applying to Oxford or Cambridge and would like someone to coach you on your application and your academic interests?

I've just graduated from a degree in Languages at Cambridge with the highest mark in my year, a First with Distinction. I offer online and in-person tutoring in English Literature, English Language, Spanish, and Oxbridge Entry at GCSE and A-Level standard. I'm here to provide short- and long-term support both for students who'd like a little help to get to where they want to be, and for students who'd like to take their study a little further.

Before Cambridge, I went to a state school, so I’ve had plenty of practice learning to successfully identify and tackle gaps in what I’ve been taught. I aim to offer a comprehensive, individualised, and responsive tutoring service, no matter your educational background. I also graduated Sixth Form with the last academic year to undertake in-person exams before Covid, which means I have a better understanding of exam season in the British educational system than a lot of my peers!

Grammar, literary analysis, speaking confidence, exam technique - whatever your worries, I can offer a tailored teaching service to help get you to where you want to be.

AS A PERSON

I speak Spanish to a C2 standard (full professional fluency), and Catalan to C1. I am also familiar with Russian. I achieved 100% and 90% in Spanish GCSE and A Level respectively, and 99% across both pieces of English Language A-Level coursework. More personally, I love to cook, and I'm planning to learn French and Romanian this year - the first for the glamour, the second for my partner. Recently I've been enjoying watching the X-Files!

Tutoring Experience

Having grown up in a family of teachers, I've been tutoring on an informal basis since I started at university, helping with a mix of personal statement counselling, oral practice, and outreach programmes designed to get less advantaged students into Oxbridge. I have also worked in both professional translation and language schools, and have experience both in lesson planning, and in offering clear and coherent explanations of the more challenging parts of grammar and text analysis.

Tutoring Approach

I’ve always learned the most fully by linking things together, so that’s the approach I take in teaching. When you don’t understand something, the first step to grasping ‘why’ is to bridge the gap back to what you know. This is an approach that starts at the most basic level of understanding, but can encourage a method of independent learning that can take you well beyond what is expected even in an Oxbridge interview. My aim is to teach you not only what you’ve not yet been taught, but also how to work around difficult conceptual problems on your own.

There are two parts to this: exploring your initial understanding of the topic, and then prompting you to rethink it in a new light, often with new information, to include the topic at hand. That way, you arrive at an understanding that’s entirely your own, not just rote repetition. If you’re starting to think about writing a personal statement, this kind of connective learning is really useful.

If you’re thinking of applying to Oxford or Cambridge, we’ll do this not just about your course but also about your own academic interests, developing your written and oral rhetorical ability, your powers of analysis and reasoning, and your academic intuition over the course of a few films, books, and grammatical and oral exercises, to prepare you for the interview and entrance exams.