Federica Nardella

Details

My background

Hello, I am Federica and I am an English Literature and Language, Music, Italian, History and Philosophy tutor, as well as a professional musician with a degree in English Literature and Creative writing from Royal Holloway University, a Master in Ethnomusicology from SOAS, and I am currently completing a PhD in Music at King's College, London.
I am an Italian native speaker and I have lived in London for thirteen years and Istanbul for two years. I have been employed as a private teacher, translator, musician and youth worker for YMCA and the Barnet Branch of the National Autistic Society.

Experience

I started tutoring students in Italian and English at beginner, intermediate and university level when completing my studies at Royal Holloway, in 2009. I taught British students Italian grammar and literature, helped them practise conversation and write essays, and coached them for language tests and literature exams.
Since 2009, I have privately taught English to Italian students for two years in London as well as in the private institution Nove Muse in Italy for three months in 2010, coaching them for Cambridge PET (Preliminary English Test) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exams.
As a youth worker, I have organized and ran music and creative writing sessions during the 2010 Summer Programme in the Barnet YMCA Youth Centre, and helped running weekly music classes for the Sound Skool YMCA project in Mill Hill.
In the private Nove Muse school, in Italy, I have tutored 14-18 year old students in History and Philosophy, coaching them for state exams.
Since January 2011 I have been tutoring students in a wide range of subjects which included: A-Level Music Theory, A-Level English Literature and History, GCSE English Literature and Language, as well as coaching foreign students for IELTS and practising conversation.
Through the Travel Movement Company I have been involved in an experimental teaching project, which aimed at teaching 11-18 year old foreign students English outside the classroom and around London, so as to give pupils a chance to learn about how the language is used in everyday situations as well as teaching them about the city and its history. I tutored an intermediate level group of 25 students for two weeks, taking them around London and assigning them tasks which would make it necessary for them to use the language.
In February 2011 and until September 2013, I taught at the Bruce Grove Learning Centre. I taught a class of 15 students, tutoring them in GCSE exams in English literature.
I have both a rigorous and creative approach to teaching, aimed at strengthening the learning abilities of pupils and helping them recognize and improve their weaknesses. I am patient and I like creating a learning context which is a mutual exchange of knowledge, thus encouraging the students to make their own contribution to the study sessions by bringing material which might make them feel more comfortable and familiar with the subject. In the past, I have often used music, newspapers, magazines, extracts from literary texts to teach English to foreign students, a method which helped them to consolidate their knowledge of grammar and language by observing its practical and everyday use. My students found this teaching approach very useful and gratifying, as it helped them contextualise their knowledge and not only learn about abstract concepts.
My method is also based on offering a good balance between theory and practice, and help the students manage their own study time and build a productive study technique.
I place much importance on the acquisition of self confidence: I found in my experience that often the biggest difficulty encountered by students is the trust in their own abilities.
Depending on the level and needs of each student, I create an individual study programme which enables them to focus on the aspect of a subject they must improve or refine. A wise use of time is one of the key factors to a student's academic success, and my tuitions also aim at organizing the student's knowledge so that s/he might succeed at managing it and gain satisfaction from his/her results. I provide some learning material for students at every session.
I am passionate about the subjects I teach and always strive to help the students achieve their best and fully develop their potential.

Qualifications

BA English Literature & Creative Writing (Royal Holloway University), MMus Ethnomusicology (SOAS, University of London), Music PhD candidate (King's College, London)

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