Do people really “drift”? Is losing friends a sign of maturation? Can our values change? To celebrate the end of what will hopefully be our final lockdown in Sydney, episode six of Fourth Speaker is going to be a little lighter on the ears. We spend some time revisiting some experiences with some friendships from our past and reassess a few of the things we’ve noticed, now in hindsight. This one’s juicy!
Co-Founder & Director
11 years experience
David has been working with students in English since 2015. He majored in English Literature at Western Sydney University, where he graduated in 2018, also as an alumnus of The Academy, the university’s selective programme for high-achieving students — with sub-majors in Sociology, Linguistics, and Education.
His teaching background is deliberately broad. He has worked with students from the diverse learning unit at Sir Joseph Banks High School, international EAL/D students at Chester Hill IEC, and refugee students through the Inclusions Program at Arthur Phillip High School — students who arrived at English from entirely different starting points, different languages, different schooling systems, different relationships with written expression. When a student cannot articulate what they mean, David knows precisely where the difficulty lives. That is not a skill most English tutors have.
He founded Foci Education in 2019 with a clear position: English teaching, done with the rigour it deserves, in an institution built around nothing else.
Outside the classroom, David goes on cafe runs and makes solo dinner reservations.
He considers both a form of research.
