Avalon School has two buildings. The first one is
near the tube station Leicester Square. This building is for offices and some rooms. The second building
is near the tube station Tottenham Court Road (5 minutes
walking from the first building) inside we find classrooms, cafeteria,
computers’ rooms, etc.
We are going to have the interview in the second
building with Alex the Academic Manager of Avalon
School. We are going to do the interview in the “Chill Room” and it’s
when Alex told us and we have to take care as he can talk for hours J
This is the
cafeteria where for relaxing
Hello Alex, thank you for the interview. Do you mind
if we start the interview talking about your role in Avalon School? You are the Academic Manager, aren’t you?
As the Academic
manager, I am responsible of
the quality and good performance of the lessons.
One of the functions of this charge is to attend the students from
the beginning to the end.
However, the most is to make sure the quality of the teachers and
the teaching. I train the teachers, so we give to Avalon’s teacher a special
training because we have our unique way of teaching. I gave them training but
also I supervise them a bit while they are here.
In the end, they are two big functions. Be in charge of the
students and the teachers.
Tell us about the History of Avalon School:
Avalon School was founded 20 years ago by
teachers. Well, the founder was not a teacher but he did it with other
teachers.
These teachers had passion for a specific
way of teaching, they were in good school but they wanted to do something even
better, so they founded Avalon.
The idea was to combine the traditional
method, which people knew as direct method what in reality is not true, with a
new method which they called ADE (Avalon Direct English).
We decided to upload completely the school,
so since the last year we have started using books and teaching with the Quantum
method, the most modern method.
This is the terrace with views to the
centre of the city
Which qualifications does a teacher need to work in Avalon?
This is a good question... every school around the world can
employ a teacher by looking through their CV.
You need a degree and qualifications as a scholastic. This is
required, but we need more than that. Of course you also need to have as a
mother tongue English. But in the way we teach we need the teachers have other
qualifications too.
The common in other ways of teaching is to use the book which
tells you what you have to do. It says to the teachers and students what they
need to learn.
I don’t want to be unfair with the good teachers of other schools,
but at the end this is what they are doing.
Avalon’s book they
are not exactly books, they are tools. The teachers obviously need to know
grammar, however they need a kind of skill because the students are going to
make questions from the beginning and in real time. Therefore, our teachers
should know, from their experience o from the training that I gave them, how to
process these situations.
The students come here to talk and learn. They want to be corrected, they have already studied English, now they want to know how to use it.
To sum up, we want our teachers to care of correcting the students
when they make a mistake. We want they help the students to sound natural.
If for example I enrol a Course today, what will happen? What will
be the process?
If you enrol a Course today, we would start with a level test. You
will find a part of grammar in this test, but it is not especially important.
If you are coming to enrol a preparation exam course, the
important thing would be the speaking test.
We make you questions, we have a conversation. Then, we look
carefully to the mistakes students make, the questions that you don’t
understand, the quality of your pronunciation, the variety of your vocabulary,
etc.
It is very common to find students who have a really good grammar
but they show difficulties to speak.
So we offer them to be in an advanced class of grammar and in a
beginner class of speaking, for example. It depends on their needs.
Enterviewing Alex
What is the maximum number of students per class?
The maximum number of students in a Speaking lesson is 12.
Actually, we are very sensitive to the changes in the timetable.
If someone told me “Alex, can I come to lessons tomorrow in the morning instead
of afternoon?” what I will do is to find if there is a place in a class where
the number of students is not higher than 12.
Computer’s room
To finish, why will it be a good idea to choose this School? Why
is Avalon different?
In this sense we are very lucky because
we are totally different. There are schools with other type of methodology, for
example the Callan method which is a different method that the mainstream and it promotes to
improve the Speaking skills.
Nevertheless, I think the common between
the Callan method and ours is the same than I have with a person from the
Tibet. We are totally different. It is not things like “our building is
better”, but they key is that out method is very attractive for the students who
know that to speak a language is a practice skill.
For example, in my mind I know how to
play football, in my mind I am Messi but I don’t play like him. Everyone has
heart English words. They don’t need to pay for coming to London and study
English, they want to know how to use the language.
We offer the same than other schools,
exam preparation, social events, team of football.. but here the lessons are
different.
We offer a free lesson for those who
want to try it.
_________________________________________________________________________________
The school’s address is:
1.
Avalon
School of English |London, 9 Great Newport Street, WC2H 7JA (Offices)
2.
Avalon School of English |London, 8 Denmark Street, WC2H 8LS (Classrooms)
5 minutes walking from one to
the other.
Also, you can check our web: www.polarchoice.com to find the offers for Avalon School in our Course research.
