High
Impact
English
All about us!
Well, some things...
Our Context
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David Judge and James Seymour are based at The School, a small English Academy in Central Spain run by the human-dynamo that is Michele (Shelly) Rankin.
Our teaching style and the activities we share are heavily influenced by both the ethos of The School and the circumstances in which we teach, which are:
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Limited Contact time
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Most groups have one or two 60 minute classes a week so, in the immortal words of Huey Lewis, they are here for a good time, not a long time. We work hard to get as much practice as possible into the time we're together with the students.
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Communicative focus.
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Most of our students get (or got) a lot of exposure to vocabulary and grammer in their state school lessons but need help putting it into practice.
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At The School we constantly push ourselves and each other to find creative ways of making English fun and memorable and our classes purposeful.
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If you'd like to know more about our academy or are interested in working with us, check out our website here.
Dave
My story is pretty standard in the realms of teaching English. I studied History at university, one of the go to choices for those put on the spot by their careers advisor in sixth form.
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After an underwhelming year working at a bank I decided to go and teach English in South Korea for just a year. I ended up spending eight years working in both China and South Korea. I don't think there was really a specific moment when this changed into my career but it has.
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I currently work alongside James as a teacher and director of Studies at The School. I came for a three month contract and have been here now for over ten years.
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In the classroom I try to:
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Break complicated end goals down into manageable (and learnable) smaller steps.
Get the students to play with the language by giving them a reason to want to communicate with their classmates.
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James
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​I started out studying science. It didn't become my career path, but it did leave me with a curiosity about the inner-workings of things which I love to indulge in the classroom.
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After a few years working in hospitals, I began teaching English in Peru and later in the UK and Spain. At some point education evolved from being a way of paying the bills (-ish) to a vocation I love.
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I currently work alongside Dave as a teacher and director of Studies at The School and do regular stints at a summer school where I've been a teacher and centre director.
Having taught in some very different contexts, I've noticed two constants:
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People remember language when they use it to speak about something personal or impactful.
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It always feels good (for teacher and student alike) if you finish a class having learnt something new about the world.
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If these things happen in class, and students are suitably challenged by the language they used in the process, then I generally feel pretty great about my job and life in general. I hope the activities posted here all manage to tick at least one of the boxes!