English tuition
English tuition from Grade R to matric and beyond, for IEB, DBE and Cambridge learners, as a Home Language or an additional language.
Families often look for help with English after a disappointing mark, perhaps in a comprehension test, an essay or a poetry paper. The cause may lie in reading, in grammar and sentence structure, or in how the learner plans and structures an answer.
Amanda Ceglowski works on the underlying cause while keeping up with what the school syllabus requires that term.
One subject, several syllabuses
English is taught in South African schools both as a Home Language, for learners whose main language of learning is English, and as an additional language, for learners who use English as a second language. The DBE and the IEB examine it differently.
In the DBE system, Grade 12 English Home Language has three written papers: language in context, literature, and writing. Oral assessments completed during the year also count towards the final mark. The IEB uses two three-hour papers. The first combines comprehension, summary, poetry, and visual and critical literacy. The second is built on literature, including a compulsory Shakespeare essay, and on transactional writing. Cambridge separates the subject differently again, with First Language English assessing reading and writing and a separate Literature in English syllabus.
Amanda teaches all of them, and lessons are matched to the papers each learner will write.
What lessons cover
Reading and comprehension. Close reading: inference, tone, the writer’s purpose, and why a particular word was chosen.
Language. Grammar, punctuation and usage, taught through the learner’s own writing.
Literature. Novels, plays, Shakespeare and poetry, both prescribed and unseen. Learners practise forming their own view of a text and supporting it with evidence.
Writing. Essays, from narrative and descriptive pieces to argument, and the transactional forms (letters, reports, speeches, reviews) that appear in language examinations.
Orals. Prepared and unprepared speeches, readings and presentations.
Experience behind it
Amanda studied English at the University of Natal for a BA and a Higher Education Diploma. She later completed a BA Honours in English Language and Literature through UNISA, awarded cum laude, and in the mid-1990s taught in the English department of the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. At St Mary’s DSG in Kloof she taught English and was appointed head of the English department within two years. Over the following decades she taught English and English academic support at schools across the Upper Highway, alongside her private practice in Hillcrest.
She also taught extracurricular Speech and Drama at Highbury for 32 years. That experience is useful in preparing learners for oral assessments.
Groups and individual lessons
Senior learners on the same syllabus often work in groups, especially in Grades 11 and 12, when learners on the same syllabus study the same set works. Younger learners and those with specific difficulties in reading or writing usually start with one-to-one lessons and may move into a group as they gain confidence.
Questions parents ask
Frequently asked questions
Do you teach English as a Home Language or as an additional language?
Both. Amanda teaches English as a Home Language and as an additional language, as well as Cambridge First Language English and English as a Second Language.
Can you help with orals and speeches?
Yes. Amanda taught Speech and Drama for over thirty years, and preparing learners for the prepared and unprepared speeches in school oral assessments is a regular part of her lessons.
Do you help with set works?
Yes. Lessons cover the novels, plays, Shakespeare and poetry prescribed for each grade and examining body, as well as the unseen texts and writing tasks that cannot be prepared in advance.
