English Language Teachers

Whatever your current level of English, our dedicated teaching staff can help you reach your language learning goals.

Our experienced English language teachers cover language improvement in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Classroom activities are interactive and structured around topical themes to keep language development relevant and interesting. English language support is offered in a small group (up to 12 students) and one-to-one study with a personal tutor.

Julia Gutierrez

Julia has been teaching EFL for over 16 years, working in schools in Uganda, Australia, China and Austria, as well as the UK. She currently teaches on the University Foundation Course and teacher training programmes at St Clare’s.

At the beginning of her career, Julia worked as a volunteer in rural Uganda where she taught pupils from underprivileged backgrounds. She later went on to become Head of Foreign Teachers at the renowned Sun Yat Sen Memorial Middle School in China, where her responsibilities included designing and administering bespoke teacher training sessions. She gained her Trinity Diploma in 2006 and became a Trinity approved Teacher Trainer in 2012. Furthermore, she has held positions as EFL Programme Co-ordinator and Academic Manager at busy and prestigious schools.

She has been an author and editor for the ELT Division of Oxford University Press since 2012. During this time, her work has included writing for their online testing system and the recent ‘Navigate’ course book, as well as preparing CEFR mapping documents for publications such as ‘New Headway’.

Julia loves travelling to new countries to learn about their culture and language. She also has a keen appreciation of the beauty of nature and enjoys spending time outdoors.

Keith Ibsen

Keith Ibsen is currently the Programme coordinator of the University Foundation course and Director of Studies of the English language courses. He has been teaching since 1996 and taught in many schools and colleges in Spain and Japan before joining St Clare’s in 2014. He studied Modern Languages at the University of Westminster, which included a year studying in Mexico. As well as teaching he has worked as a restaurant manager, waiter, barman and lifeguard. Since returning to his hometown of Oxford and arriving at St Clare’s he has completed his DELTA certification. He is a keen traveller who has spent time in several countries over five continents. He is also interested in accents and languages, and as well as English he speaks Spanish and Japanese. In his spare time he plays too many board games, watches too many movies and drinks too much coffee.

Francesca Berlen

Francesca is an EFL/ Academic English teacher and CELTA trainer, with experience teaching in Thailand and Mexico, as well as spending several years in the South of Italy. Here she obtained her DELTA qualification and trained as a Cambridge examiner. In recent years, she worked for International House Reggio Calabria as their Director of External Studies, overseeing the English programme in local state schools. While working there, she enjoyed training teachers on various programmes such as the IHCYLT and CELTA. She also has experience training young people in public speaking and has herself presented at teaching conferences for International House and AISLI. Throughout her career, she regularly returned to work at Pilgrims Language School, getting involved in all sorts of madcap activities on their immersive English summer programs. In her free time, she enjoys live music and is an avid cook.