Hi. My name is Debra Garcia and I'm the creator and author of this website. I'm a private ESL tutor for adults. Some of my students are professionals living and working in the U.S. They're trying to advance in their careers and have found that their English language skills are holding them back, so they decided to take lessons to improve their English. Some are students from other countries who are visiting the U.S. as scholars in their respective fields and are also here to improve their English. Some are new to the U.S., perhaps recently married, and are trying to improve their English to feel more comfortable living here.
Teaching ESL to adults was a mid-life career change for me. It's one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. And I've done many other things on my personal career path. Mostly, I've worked for non-profit organizations (trying to save the world). I practiced law for about a minute. I was a full-charge bookkeeper for about a decade. Etc. All of these life experiences help me to be a better tutor to my students.
As for my educational background, my undergrad degree is in Sociology. I also have a law degree and a Master of Arts degree in Adult Education. I have a TESOL certificate and a teaching credential.
Over a year ago, I started a blog about my personal experiences as a private ESL tutor. I received such great feedback from so many people, that I decided to start this website. In my blog, I include information about my tutoring sessions, lessons plans, grammar points, explanations of the grammar that we native English speakers never learned in school (or have forgotten!), student needs assessments, and information about being a self-employed tutor (how to find students, where to advertise, etc.).
The blog format was limiting with what I wanted to do to help other ESL and EFL tutors and teachers. Plus the blog is free and you never know when it can just be taken away! I decided to use
Site Build It!
to build this site because I have another site with them (it's about cats) and I know they are a really good company. They take care of everything I need to develop a nice site; one that people can actually find.
My goal is for this site to be the best ESL resource for ESL tutors on the web (or at least in the top 10!). It'll take a while, as this is a part-time endeavor. Update: My site has reached #1 on Google! Check it out. Type "teaching esl to adults" into Google and you'll find my site right up top!
I'm continually writing new articles and adding new ESL worksheets. I hope you'll come back to visit often. You can subscribe to the RSS feeds listed on your left to be notified about when I add new material.
Also, if you have any suggestions, requests, comments, corrections, etc., please contact me. Thank you and Happy Teaching.
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