My name is Lerynne Walkerley-Verster. I started teaching individual fellow students at my school when I was about 15 years old.
After school, I completed a Law degree (with English as a subject as well), while giving English classes to private clients. I also tutored English at my university later on during my degree.
When I went to university, I had to study in Afrikaans as courses weren't offered in English at that time. I had learned a bit of Afrikaans in school but studying every subject in a second language was pretty difficult in the beginning. So I understand and sympathise with students who also have to study in a language that isn’t their home language! I also know it can be done successfully.
After university, I studied TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in London, UK, and then taught English in the UK for a while. I started to dream about starting a language school in South Africa but I was very young and needed experience.
When I came back to South Africa, I taught English to high school students (most of whom spoke English as a second, third, or even fourth language!) for 4½ years, while doing an Honours degree in English Linguistics. I also offered English classes to private students during this time.
While teaching English at the high school, I met my wonderful husband. We left formal teaching to start our own website development and IT company.
However, teaching is in my blood and I couldn’t stay away completely. As part of my role in our business, I taught clients to update their own websites, write text and marketing materials (or wrote it for them), did basic search engine optimization, and various other aspects of online marketing. In some way or another, I’m always trying to teach others things I know.
Once our business was well-established, I went back to the local university to tutor English literacy skills to first-year students and I now tutor English literature to second-year students.
These three things give me a perspective no one else can give you
- As a student,
I experienced the difficulties of studying in a second language so I understand the frustrations that students feel.
- As a teacher and lecturer,
I also know how hard it is to meet the specific needs of all the students in your class when class sizes are so big and the curriculum keeps changing. The sad truth is that there isn’t always time for personal attention and some students fall behind.
- As a businesswoman,
I know that good communication in English is essential for everyone in today’s world. Whether a person wants to study successfully, apply for a job, run a business or travel the world, he is going to need to be able to read, write and speak English effectively.
These three roles have given me unique insights into the problems faced by students and teachers as well as the necessity of good English skills if one wants to succeed in the world in future. The combination of these insights inspired the creation of LingoSkills.
Lerynne Walkerley-Verster Mind-expander
