Susan Abrill

Biography

My academic / teaching credentials:  CELTA, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Masters in Teaching (MAT), National-Louis University, Chicago; BA Art, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington; Diploma, French, University of Victoria

Specializations: Presentation skills, IELTS preparation, pronunciation, academic writing

Years of teaching experience: 23 years

I have taught ESL in many countries, including Japan, Greece, Guatemala, Peru and the USA.  I love teaching English and meeting people from all over the world.  I have studied Japanese, French and Spanish, and I'm now studying Hebrew and Portuguese, so I understand what it’s like to learn a new language.  I use my own experience learning new languages in my teaching all the time.  I first began teaching ESL in Tokyo, Japan.  After that I taught ESL to immigrant children in Chicago.  I have discovered some interesting ways to teach English, and I have presented these methods at conferences in the USA and Canada.  One of these ways is developing English fluency through comics.  If you are my student, I will probably ask you to make a comic! 

Best advice for students: Get as much input as possible.  “Input” is reading, listening to conversations, watching TV and listening to music.  The input does amazing things to your brain.  If you get enough daily input –outside of class– then the new patterns and grammar you learn in class will “stick” better.  I recommend at least 1 hour a day of watching a podcast or TV show with English subtitles.  If you do this every day, your listening comprehension and spoken fluency, not to mention vocabulary, will improve immensely.  And what’s more, it’s so easy!  Also, watching or listening to something once, even twice, is never enough.