Rey

I am an experienced teacher with a PhD in literature and art history from Oxford University. My tutoring practice, honed through ten years of teaching in the Oxford tutorial system, is attentive to the specific needs and interests of individual students and encourages them to be independent thinkers, and confident and thoughtful readers and writers.

My tutoring includes KS3 literacy and maths, GCSE English Literature and Language, A-Level English Literature and other humanities subjects (Art History, Classical Civilisation, etc.), and undergraduate English and Comparative Literature, Film and Art History, as well as humanities subjects for homeschooled students. I also work with pupils taking entrance exams at 11 and 13.

I have EFL experience at all levels, both as a classroom teacher and in private tutoring, and often work with non-native speakers to ensure their writing, including academic work, is precise and idiomatic.

Tutoring Experience

I have taught online and in person since 2006, starting as an EFL teacher in Prague, Czechia, and volunteering as a tutor for underprivileged children in Oxford during my undergraduate degree. In 2006–7, 2008–10 and 2011–12 I worked as a teacher of English as a Foreign language to adults and young people (8–18) including Cambridge exams, business English and IELTS, in classroom settings and one-on-one.

Between 2015 and 2023 I taught literature (1770 to the present), language, literary translation and film at the University of Oxford, mostly undergraduate tutorials (one-on-one and one-on-two). I also wrote and delivered lectures on poetry and on literary adaptation, designed and taught a postgraduate module on the MSt in Film Aesthetics, and supervised dissertations at undergraduate and Masters level. I organised extra-curricular writing and translation workshops, and designed and delivered a short course on creative writing for young people (16–18) and sessions KS4 and KS5 students to give them a taster of an Oxford degree, focusing on poetry, narrative and film. In 2018 I gained a qualification equivalent to PGCert and in 2021 I was given an award in recognition of teaching excellence at Pembroke College, Oxford. Every year I participated in admissions, marking work and interviewing potential students, and can work with students who are curious about this process.

Since 2023 I have taught undergraduates at Queen Mary University of London, focusing on literary translation, literature, film, and an introductory course for Liberal Art students, and worked as a private tutor in London and online.

I’m also a trained proofreader and experienced copy-editor, specialising in academic writing and literary criticism. I was editor-in-chief of the Oxonian Review during my postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford, and have edited a collection of essays for the journal German Life and Letters.

I’m a novelist, poet and critic; my first novel is coming out soon with Fitzcarraldo Editions, and my poetry has been published in a range of small magazines. I write regularly for TLS and other venues about literature, art and political thought.

Tutoring Approach

My tutoring practice is based on my long experience of the tutorial setting at Oxford, in which the student is given individualised attention and support to follow their own interests and hone their own ideas. This is an extremely flexible approach which allows students at all levels to become a clear writer, careful reader and independent thinker. (One student recently wrote that my classes ‘made [them] think A LOT, in a good way’.) My bespoke teaching pays attention to each student’s needs and the specific challenges they face while also fostering enthusiasm for a subject. I have several years’ experience preparing students for exams, from 11+ to undergraduate finals, and my approach is empathetic and strategic, showing students how to play to their strengths, untangle complicated questions, work efficiently and keep their cool. Students I have worked with have often succeeded expectations, going up one or even two grades/degree classes, through having had the space to take their own intellectual development seriously. I also have a track record of supporting students with specific learning difficulties to achieve their potential.

While I enjoy seminar teaching, nothing beats individual or small-group settings for a properly individualised learning experience; it’s important for me not just to build rapport with my students, but understand them as whole people. Whether in person or online, I use a range of resources tailored to the individual student, finding texts and devising activities that respond to the specific challenges they face, whether in reading comprehension or clarity of expression, and their own developing intellectual interests. In helping students prepare for entrance exams at 11 and 13 I draw on my experience teaching creative writing, and my own practice as a novelist, to deliver expert tips for creative writing components.