Welcoming Adam to LSI/IH Portsmouth

Posted on 05/11/2015

In the Summer, a lot of new staff joined LSI/IH Portsmouth, one of our new members was kind enough to introduce himself in a blog piece, which although now is a little belated, is still lovely!

My name is Adam, I am one of the newest members of the
LSI/IH Portsmouth teaching team, and I am an IELTS teacher. I have only been teaching at LSI/IH Portsmouth for 1 month (6 months now), so I am
still adjusting to the new work environment, still learning names, and still
haven’t eaten in the cafeteria.

LSI/IH Portsmouth isn’t the only ‘new’ in my life, I am new to
Portsmouth, having just returned to the UK from Russia,
where I taught English for 7 years, Japan for 2 years before that. So,
I totally understand the frustrations and joys of learning a new language and
living in a new culture.
I am also a new father, my daughter was born
just a few days before I joined LSI/IH Portsmouth, and I don’t think I’ve slept since.

Before teaching at LSI/IH Portsmouth or changing nappies, I was teaching IELTS online. My good friend Matt, the founder of theieltsteacher.com, invited me to join him teaching on his website. It is a website aimed
at students who want one-to-one lessons to learn IELTS test strategy and
improve their English within an IELTS context. Before joining Matt I had been
teaching independently online and I had worked as part of a team designing and
teaching online academic writing courses for two Russian universities, MIPT and
ITMO.

For me as a teacher, I didn’t have to travel to a school, I could sit in my office, with a wall covered in clocks for different time zones, and work from there. Or, I could sit in my pajamas planning lessons and developing material. 
I remember when I first moved to the Portsmouth area, I had scheduled one final
lesson with a student called Zhenya. On the day I moved to Portsmouth,
we were going to have a speaking lesson just before she went in to do her IELTS
speaking test, in Moscow.
I arrived at my new flat one hour before the lesson was due to begin, two hours
before her test. Imagine my surprise when my landlord told me that
unfortunately we wouldn’t have internet access until the next day.
However, I quickly found a solution and I made sure that I was there to
give Zhenya the IELTS speaking coaching she wanted… I also gave a bar full of
people the same speaking coaching. 
Thank you Adam for this – we’ll persuade one of the other new teachers to do a piece soon!