ITG Tutors: Alice Harrison
Alice is in her second year of teaching at ITG and many of the students that she works with today have been by her side since the beginning of her teaching journey. This has allowed Alice to build incredibly strong relationships with her students, meaning that whenever they enter the ITG building, Alice is greeted with a big, excited smile!
What initially attracted you to move to Vietnam and work for ITG?
I first came to Vietnam in 2015 and fell in love with the vibrant hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City. After completing my degree, I knew that I wanted to move back ASAP. I found the job application for ITG online and straight away knew it was exactly where I wanted to be. Working at ITG enables me to tailor my sessions to the individual needs of the children and really help them to attain lightbulb moments of understanding. It also allows me to build strong and meaningful connections with my students, making them feel safe and willing to take risks in our sessions.
You have been at ITG for over a year, do you have any favourite tutoring moments that you would like to share?
This is such a hard question; I have many favourite tutoring moments, mainly the laughs and enjoyment that I get to share with my students. One of my favourite parts of tutoring is when we read stories aloud as I am able to get creative and put on silly voices for the characters. It helps the students to understand the tone of the text while making sessions much more interesting and fun.
How do you encourage creativity in your sessions?
Teaching English is such a wonderful subject for creativity. With my younger students sometimes we will draw and annotate scenes from a story we are reading. With all of my students, we will sometimes pause and write predictions about what we think will happen next in the story. For my older students, one of my favourite ways to help them understand poetry is to read through a poem and then attempt to draw what picture the poet is creating for the reader.
Do you have any students now which you had from your first days at ITG?
Yes I do, I am lucky enough to have about 7 students who I have worked with for around a year now. Watching the progress that we have been able to make together is an absolute delight.
Do you have a favourite age to teach?
I quite enjoy teaching years 3-4. I have quite a few students at this age and I always enjoy our sessions together. However, I enjoy teaching all of my students as each one has something unique to bring to our sessions.
