American, Harvard graduate, gives English conversation classes for professionals and students, and prepares for language exams.

Learn more about John

• 1. Are you fluent in English because of your background or because a teacher made you want to learn it?

  I am a native speaker, born in Manhattan, and raised in the Bronx, and as such blessed (cursed?) by that peculiar accent, forged in the streets of Seventies and Eighties New York City. But more, as a lawyer, having studied philosophy in England, having practiced law around the world, and as one with a passion for English verse and prose, I am well versed in so-called 'legal English', and 'business English', as well as English in all the richness of its tapestry of dialects, expressions, cultures, world views.

• 2. Name the living, historical or fictional character who is, in your opinion, the emblematic representative of the culture in question?

  With respect to American English, some of the greatest voices of America in all its riches, would be Walt Whitman for verse, and Mark Twain for prose. Whitman believed that poetry could heal a nation that was heading to inevitable war, a poetry expressed in 'Leaves of Grass' that best captures the brilliant spirit of American and New York City life that was captured, contemporaneously, by Melville's whaling ship that serves as metaphor for that great experiment of American democracy that inspired souls from every corner of the world.
  
  After the Civil War comes Twain whose adventures along the Mississippi capture that maverick, adventurous spirit that made America so special.
  
  With respect to the United Kingdom, I am captivated by the simple prose of Orwell - a prose-style that includes Hemingway, EB White and Tolkien - who warned in 'Animal Farm' and '1984' about the evils of totalitarianism that once, and may, be upon us; a message powerfully forewarned by Huxley in 'Brave New World'; evils so perfectly grasped by GK Chesterton whose battle was for the human soul.
  
  It's hard to say which authors stretching from, say, Shakespeare and Milton, through Eliot and Fitzgerald, Chandler and Hemingway, Arthur C Clark and Phill K Dick, best capture the essence of American-English culture, as this culture spans, and in so many ways has been the author of, the breadth and depth of the Enlightened and Liberal, Scientific and Artistic, Modern and Post-Modern worlds.

• 3. Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition, or behavior in it that particularly appeals to you?

  There are so many genres that move me, which I love to impress upon students. Among these are the Elizabethans, in their word play, and keen insight into human psychology, and the soul within. Or perhaps authors who inspired liberty, giving rise to the American Republic, say, Madison and Jefferson, Melville, Whitman and Twain, as met by those who offer a more sobering look at the industrial age, like Lewis. There are those who are most inventive, Doyle's Sherlock Holmes comes to mind; Chandler's Marlowe; Poe's gothic horror. Then, those who were inspired by turn of the century promises of liberty and modernity, such as Fitzgerald and Hemingway, as met by those who sought to remind us of the metaphysical world, and mysteries of the soul, namely, Eliot and Chesterton. And yet from then comes authors who warn us of the horrors of modernity, chief of whom Orwell, Huxley, and even Bradbury whose dystopian warnings are met by expressions of some post-human future as imagined by Asimov, Arthur C Clark, Phillip K Dick. All of these are what capture the culture, and inspire my love, of English culture, language, thought, aesthetics.

• 4. Why is knowing how to speak English important, whether academically, professionally or from a personal point of view?

  English is important because history has made it the most dominant language on Earth. Where French once was the lingua franca of international law and diplomacy, of haute culture and among the educated, even among the nobility of England, the Industrial Age has, for better or worser, given way to English.
  
  But that said, there's something special about the English language.
  
  Enjoying the broadest vocabulary in the world - incidentally with 30 percent of its words from France - and the remainder from Nordic, Latin and Celtic traditions - it, in its economy and exactitude, allows ironically for a richness of expression that may be incomparable. In any case, English is by sheer dominance the language of opportunity, of law, of business, of a globalized economy, and polity, and even of verse and prose and scientific literature, with about 75 to 90 percent of all publications of the world in English. Whether your interest is a career in international law or business, whether you dream of living or studying in the English world, whether you aspire to heights of engineering, of science, of politics or arts, being well versed in the literature, cinema, history and cultural nuances of spoken and written English is a ticket to an enriched and promising life.

• 5. What is the main difficulty of this language and what can promote its learning?

  English is a relatively easy language to understand, and even speak and read, at an elementary level. But it is terribly difficult to master, especially in its nuances, and especially without a foreign accent. If developing a fluidity is one's hope, then reading interesting literature and speaking around such makes for the best preparation, I've learned after many years of teaching. Also if one has a particular interest in a specialty like law or business or medicine or computers, then reading and even debating central, timely issues in these areas makes for a high level of competency, with all the opportunities that follow.

• 6. What is the most amazing experience you have had as a teacher?

  I have been teaching in English for 12 years now, between university lectures and privately, from common law to international law, philosophy to politics, history to international relations, and privately in English conversation, in technical aspects of English (such as law, business, the arts and the sciences) and in its classic literature, from verse to prose.
  
  In all, I've enjoyed every moment, especially where my passion for the language and culture inspires a student, and where our meetings lead to a deeper understanding of the world, of beauty, of reality, of human possibility.

• 7. Help us get to know you a little better by talking about your different trips.

  Raised in New York City over the wild days of the 1970s through 1990s, I studied economics at Cornell, and law at Harvard, after which I served as one of the few attorneys for the hundreds of thousands of seasonal and migrant farmworkers who make their perilous journey from the Caribbean and Mexican border, to the American North. Based in the middle of the Florida Everglades, I sought to protect these most vulnerable laborers from the hands of criminal elements who exploited them in ways little better than 19th century slavery.
  
  After this first experience as a lawyer, I became a civil rights litigator on behalf of the immigrant communities of the greater New York City area, having led litigation in protection of the poorest communities in American, when, on a fellowship, I continued my studies at Oxford and Cambridge in political philosophy.
  
  Following work with Amnesty International in London, and the International Criminal Court in the Hague, I have been lecturing at the American University in Bulgaria and various universities in Paris, in law, politics and international relations. Along with my many adventures in the Caribbean, the American South and South America, I am pretty well traveled in a way that gives me an especial insight into the wonderful tapestry of human trial, human capacity, human diversity.

• 8. What makes you a Superprof, in addition to this ability to express yourself in several languages?

  Having enjoyed a world of experience in the fight for justice, in the powers of philosophy, in the beauty of English - as forged in the streets of New York, through the swamps of the South, amidst the spires of Oxbridge, through the hoped-for institutions of international law - I have lived a full, adventurous and insightful life that I look forward to imparting in my love of English, in all its contours.
  
  A love I hope all my students may share.