Alvin

Alvin Tutor Interview

Q. Hi, Alvin! Which part do you live in Canada? Is there a recommended place for sightseeing near your town?

A. Well, Canada is a huge place, but most of it is very wild and quite cold, especially in the winter! Most Canadians live close to the U.S. border, the warmest part of the country. I have to admit, I do the same! I live in Brampton, Ontario. It’s a large city for Canada, with over 400,000 people from all over the world! We have some nice art galleries, and the Peel Heritage Complex, where you can see how the earliest settlers of Brampton lived in the 19th century.

I like the many parks and green areas of Brampton, especially Gage Park. It has a very pretty gazebo, and it’s a great place to have a picnic! Wild Water Kingdom is also nearby, and it’s really popular in the summer! But I have to admit, we have absolutely huge national parks in my province – like Algonquin Provincial Park – that many people prefer. This park is about half the size of Shikoku! But, I am happy enough to visit the large library and the larger shopping centre near my home. It’s a convenient place to live. And Toronto, the largest city of Canada, is only 35 km away. This is very close for my country – Canada is the second-largest nation in the world, so it can be a very long journey getting from point A to point B! We are also close to New York State, and are about 800 km driving distance from New York City.

Q. What was the trigger to be an English teacher?

A. Well, I was working in the computing field before I turned to teaching. I decided that I wanted to see China, and help people there, so I left my old career behind. I have done and seen many things on my travels to China, Peru, and Indonesia. I would have never seen the way most people really live if I had stayed in Canada all of my life!

Q. How do you spend your holiday? Do you have any hobbies?

A. I like to listen to music from a wide range of sources, mainly soundtracks from movies old and new. My love of of good soundtracks is part of the reason why I like several Japanese composers, including Joe Hisaishi, Yanno Kanno, and Kenji Kawai. I admire the anime they wrote for, including The Wings of Honneamise, the second Patlabor move, Ghost in the Shell, Sky Crawlers, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Only Yesterday.

Q. Your lessons have a great range of targets, which is from beginners to businessmen. What is the feature of your lessons?

A. In my lessons, I want to build up my student’s confidence and their openness. Many Japanese students are quite shy, but they are very intelligent, and I want their voices to be part of the great global conversation! For example, the country of my parents, Jamaica, has made a big impact on world culture, even though we are only a few million. BUT, Jamaicans are an outgoing and outspoken people – and we speak English! Japanese is a beautiful and graceful language, but only the Japanese speak it. When more Japanese speak English and speak from their heart, the world will listen, and become a better place for it! So, in my lessons, speak from the heart.

I will help you with your grammar, and help you find the words you need to say what you need the world to hear. Maybe you are a businessman with a new gift for the world – but if the world cannot understand you, how will we know what you have? Maybe you are a housewife who wants to see a little about the world across the seas. Maybe you are a young student, who wants to fearlessly speak out and be heard. I want my students to leave my classes with better English in their heads and on their tongues. But more than this: I want them to be brave and fearless, able and willing to use the English they have been given. Tools grow rusty without regular use: use your English on me! Let me help you improve your mastery of English, so you do not need to hide your thoughts in your heart.

Q. I’m interested in the class, “Famous People, Places, and Things,” could you explain about this lesson?

A. Sure! In these lessons, we use PDFs to learn more about the most famous things in this world – evil murderers like Joseph Stalin and great freedom fighters like Lech Walesa, legendary businessmen like Akio Morita and respected religious leaders like the Dalai Lama, space explorers like Yuri Gagarin and sports stars like Pele. This course is full of interesting people! Let’s learn about them together! Of course, we will also discover unusual places like the Eiffel Tower and Kilimanjaro, and interesting things like the Internet, beer, and penicillin, but I always find people to be the most interesting things on the earth. But we all have our own opinions… Anyways, in this course we focus on a reading on the person, place, or object under study. We ask questions that encourage understanding and discussion, improving the student’s confidence and knowledge of the world. To talk of the world, we need the right words, so vocabulary is developed as well as good grammar and comprehension.

Q. Please give a message to our students!

A. I want you to speak from the heart. Everything else I do is just a way to clear away the noise, to brush away the distractions of a stutter or a mispronounced world, to correct bad syntax or improve your grammar. All this are just means to an end: to clearly show who you are, and your thoughts about the world.
Learn from the world – give to the world.

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Alvin

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