Hi, my name’s David Rushton. Let me introduce myself.
I enjoy working with students at all levels, and with all learning styles. I’ll always try to find how best to help you with your English, whatever your language needs are. (In particular I love helping independent learners who prefer to teach themselves but want specialized coaching to help them make solid progress.)
After leaving university (Canterbury, NZ), I worked for several years in and around London as a journalist. I enjoyed the opportunity to interview creative people and write about their work.
I’ve been teaching English since 1986. After several years working in language schools in England (New School of English, Cambridge) and Brazil (Instituto Britânico Independente, Brasília) I joined an innovative team of teachers at The British Council in Recife, Brazil, mainly coaching groups of adults who were preparing to take tertiary level courses in their professions in the UK (1988-91). While at The British Council I also conducted teacher training and worked as an oral examiner for Cambridge First Certificate (FCE) and Proficiency (CPE) exams.
In 1988 I gained the Royal Society of Arts Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults (with Distinction).
From 1992 I began to concentrate on giving 1-on-1 support to individual students, which has been my special focus ever since. Since 2007, my professional focus has been on individual English language coaching on-line.
During the 17 years I lived in Brazil I also taught Portuguese to immigrants and literacy classes in Portuguese to street children and illiterate rural Brazilians; worked as a freelance translator (subtitles and voice-over for TV documentaries and development project reports for NGOs including Oxfam, Save The Children, Unicef and Christian Aid); conducted teacher-trainer workshops for 1-on-1 language teaching; and ran rural immersion English language weekends.
I returned to New Zealand in 2003, where I continue to teach.
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