1st lesson free
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Amyr
- Rate £55
- Response 1h
-
Students50+
Number of students Amyr has accompanied since arriving at Superprof
Number of students Amyr has accompanied since arriving at Superprof
£55/hr
Contact
1st lesson free
- English
- Literacy
- Creative writing
- Redaction
Experienced tutor in English in Oakland, Amyr offers private lessons tailored to your needs.
- English
- Literacy
- Creative writing
- Redaction
Lesson location
Recommended
Amyr is a respected member of our tutor community. She is highly recommended for her commitment and the quality of her lessons. An excellent choice to progress with confidence.
About Amyr
First, my technical details: I have a Ph. D. in American Literature and Poetics, over 20 years of experience as a professor writing, literature, creative writing, critical theory and thinking, and 6 as a tutor in Northern California and online. In both, I have worked with a diverse mix of students—of varied backgrounds, ages, abilities, ambitions, and difficulties—in this country, Middle East, and other regions. Second, my passionate devotion to teaching: every student I meet engages my interest, and that engagement enables me to draw from my students a precise understanding of their singular struggles and how best to address them effectively, efficiently, and supportively. All that I help my students learn—grammar, the composition of a powerful argument or personal statement for an application, the comprehension of a difficult text, the modes of negotiating the SATs, finding their creative voice or mastering of business writing—go far beyond any single skill, for all impart methods of critical and creative thinking and writing that they will be able to carry beyond our work together into every subject they study.
As a tutor, I love the surprises every session brings: each student is a singular being, with their own way of being and thinking, gifted with originality and power, even if they may now rest, with various degrees of silence, within. By listening to my students, reading their work, helping them express ideas that they barely know they have but deeply desire to articulate, I learn as much as I teach. Even working upon something as simple—as frustrating—as grammar or essay structure involves a conceptualization that forms the ground for complex critical thinking. Watching the unique ways in which such thinking emerges from each student teaches me, sets off creative sparks that feed, in turn, my own thinking and writing.
My teaching began, strangely, with my restaurant work: learning to become an excellent waiter in an excellent restaurant meant learning how to let the food speak through me, how to teach my customers sensations, the pleasures the dish they were considering would give them. This meant listening to both my chefs and the food itself, then allowing the food to find the words to express its true qualities through me. At the same time, my studies in wine made me a resource for my fellow waiters: the combination of that knowledge and my growing ability to allow the wine to speak through me led the owner of my restaurant to ask me to hold weekly sessions with them to teach them about the wine list and the way different wines could be paired with particular dishes. When I left restaurant service, moved to Prague, and began teaching English, I discovered that I had only to translate the skills I had already developed into the new realm in which I was working.
I have a BA summa cum laude in Medieval Studies from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in American Literature and Poetics from SUNY Buffalo. I have taught writing, literature, creative writing, and critical theory on the college level for over twenty years, most recently, for ten years, at Georgetown University in Qatar. Over the last six years, I have tutored students of many ages—middle school students to adults—of all abilities in the same subjects, as well as test preparation, college application essays, philosophy, multidisciplinary senior thesis research and writing, and business writing. Students who have worked with me have raised their grades and test scores significantly, deepened their critical thinking and writing skills, advanced their careers, found their creative voices, and enhanced their self-knowledge and self-confidence.
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About the lesson
- Primary
- Secondary
- GCSE
- +8
levels :
Primary
Secondary
GCSE
AS Level
A Level
BTEC
Adult Education
Masters
Doctorate
MBA
Nursery
- English
All languages in which the lesson is available :
English
Listening comes first: I ask each student to talk about the class, project, subject, test, or application essay upon which we will be working. From this conversation, I begin to develop a clear sense of the work to be done, of both the intellectual matters to be conquered and the student's anxieties, desires, and interests, all of which must also be faced. From there, I develop a plan—not one that attempts to solve every problem a student may have at once, but one that works by conceptual steps, each of which builds upon the one before. This does two things: first, it builds the student's confidence as they succeed at one aspect of the subject, then the next; second, it helps the student develop critical and creative thinking, as they come to understand the logic of the process, sees how we have been progressing, how each step relates to the others to form a more complex whole.
I have worked with students of many cultures—the Middle East; Pakistan and India; Southeast Asia, China, and Korea; Northern Africa; Eastern Europe; and the United States, Canada, and Mexico—abilities, and ages—from middle school students to adults. This includes differently abled students, such as those with dyslexia (I am myself moderately dyslexic); those who excel in Math and Science but struggle in English and Writing; those who have suddenly, for uncountable reasons, begun to struggle there or lost the ability to write; those who may never have excelled in English but simply need encouragement and a rigorous but patient tutor who will make substantive comments on their writing and draw out their hidden thoughts about their reading; those whose abilities have been suppressed by the norms of the educational system; and those who need greater challenges than their schools can give them to fully develop their creativity and critical thinking.
Does the teacher think she knows everything and seek to impose her knowledge upon you, or is she interested in your original ideas and in helping you develop and express them clearly, precisely, and gracefully? Does the teacher assume she fully understands the literary work you are reading and know what it means, or is she interested in your interpretation and helping you fully ground it in the text and express it through a clear, well-structured, effective argument of your own? If the answer to either question lies in the first clause, you should seek another teacher, for you desire one who will respect you, listen to you, be open to the surprise of your ideas, and patiently work to help you bring them to their finest expression.
A few things worth thinking about before reaching out
To the extent that I can explain them, what are my difficulties in the given subject? What, to the extent that I know, do I need help with? What do I dread when contemplating a tutor—what would my nightmare tutor do, which evil anime or Marvel universe demon would she be? Conversely, what do I dream of in a tutor—what do I most hope a tutor will enable me to do, know, think, discover, become?
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Review
All of our reviews are collected by us and are 100% reliable. They correspond to a real experience lived by the students of Amyr.
5 (6 reviews)
Perfect! Very caring and responsive tutor. Tailored the lessons after understanding the needs fully.
Perfect! Responsive and experienced tutor
Perfect! Caring, empathetic, flexible and accommodating.
Perfect! It was great to work together with Amy. She is a very talented, patient, and insight tutor! I highly recommend.
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Recommendations
Recommendations come from relatives, friends and acquaintances of the teacher
2
Professor Nestor was my professor of writing in my freshman year in university, as well as of literature and cultural theory in my junior year. She was also one of the mentors I had when working on my 60-page senior year thesis. I am most fortunate to have had her, a dedicated thoughtful, patient, empathetic, and hardworking educator, as one of my professors. She has a strong ability in creating a productive rapport with her students, like myself, helping them with specific needs that they may have, such as in working on a particular form of prose writing. Her knowledge of writing, literature, and cultural theory are of great depth, knowledge that she effectively and engagingly communicates to her students. She has made me a better writer, reader, and thinker. She has provided me with such skills as critical thinking that have been useful to me in other subjects I took during university and beyond.
Professor Nestor has taught as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University. It is no secret that she had been one of the most popular and inspiring instructors in our community, building close, personal ties with many of her students.
I can honestly say that she has truly transformed the way I write. After taking her classes, I’ve become more aware of the potential power of my words, and more able to harness that power in the way that I express myself. She teaches you in a way that does not overwhelm you, providing specific, targeted feedback on your work that you slowly absorb and build on the more time that you spend with her. The things that she has taught me have stayed with me well beyond her classes, well beyond university. To this day, four years later, I still remember her comments and feedback, and implement them in everything that I write.
If you could see the amount of time and effort she spent providing feedback on each of our papers, you would see how much she cares. It’s not just a job to her; she has a passion for helping each of her students reach their full potential.View more recommendations
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Rates
Rate
- £55
Pack prices
- 5h: £275
- 10h: £550
free lessons
The first free lesson with Amyr will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.
- 1hr
online
- £55/h
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