Chris Costantini

A CELTA qualified teacher, Fulbright language fellow, and linguist, I am a reliable, disciplined, curious and enthusiastic individual with over five years’ experience as a freelance English and Spanish tutor and four years’ experience as an EFL teacher. Helping my mother at the school where she taught, I’ve learned how to improvise and plan “on the spot”. My age allows me to better understand the young learners’ needs, points of view and barriers in learning. Lately, I’ve been working extensively with teenagers. My fields of research include cognitive grammar, conceptual metaphor, and linguistics applied to second language teaching (with a special emphasis on advanced students). 

I enjoy working on my own initiative, but I cannot deny that I see in teamwork a great opportunity to work on my cooperative abilities and learn something from other people. 

I lived in Brighton (UK) for almost two years and I spent six months in central London as an undergraduate student on a scholarship. I earned a BA in Languages (English & Spanish) graduating summa cum laude. 

I have completed two MAs. One in English Studies & Linguistics applied to Teaching English as a Second Language, and one in Languages and Translation Studies. I have graduated with first class honours in both cases. In May 2022 I was awarded with the prestigious Fulbright scholarship as part of their FLTA programme to teach as a language fellow in a US college.

Over the past 5 years, I have taught in a number of scenarios that have helped me grow both as a professional and a human being while also further fuelling my love for the job. I have done everything from teaching young learners during summer camps, to cover teaching jobs where I would be assigned a different class every morning, to private tuition to adults (either in the form of one-to-one classes or group sessions), and, obviously, online teaching, which has become a predominant component of my professional activity since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. 

I have also been working as an author for a small publishing company based in Paris for which I design educational material that they either publish in the form of training books or upload onto their online platform where students can prepare for the most popular English language certificates including IELTS, CAE, Linguaskill, TOEFL, TOEIC etc. It goes without saying that this job has allowed me to further improve my planning skills and it has also given me a more thorough understanding of how these types of exams are structured. Not coincidentally, a considerable percentage of my online teaching is focused on exam preparation. 

Because of my job as a content creator and my extensive research activity as a linguist, I have been able to experiment with a number of different teaching approaches and materials (most of which are original) throughout the years. This has allowed me to expand my skills and define my personal teaching approach while also giving me enough confidence to work in any type of context. 

My teaching philosophy is based on cooperation and observation. It means that, although I am more than happy to work on my own, I am always eager to learn from more experienced colleagues and be part of a team of teachers who all work towards the same goal. The element of objective observation underpinning my teaching philosophy refers precisely to what I consider the main priorities in the classroom: the students’ needs. I try to make most of my classes student-centred while also making sure to allow for enough flexibility to reach certain learning objectives. Put more simply, although I might walk in the classroom (or start the Zoom call) with some ideas on how to get from point A to point B, I am always open to make changes to the itinerary based on who I am working with and what their needs are. 

Professionally, I am always trying to improve the quality of my teaching and my overall understanding of the English language as a subject to analyse and explain. My first MA in Linguistics Applied to Second Language Education from the University of Jaén has allowed me to work alongside some of the most important personalities in the field of English and Education Studies, such as Dr. María Luísa Pérez-Cañado. My most recent professional achievement was being awarded with the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to become a language fellow at a US college as part of their FLTA Programme. My academic background allows me to implement my hands-on teaching experience with the understanding of how more specific uses of English need to be taught. I am the son of two non-native English speakers, and I have lived and worked abroad while also teaching in multicultural contexts such as summer camps and pre-sessional courses. This allows me to work well with any culture while also giving me the possibility to predict which set of obstacles certain students are likely to face based on what their first language is.