My goal is to help you learn
the English you need.
Hi!
I’m Andrew Girardin. I made this website, as well as the much-loved FCE Exam Tips and CAE Exam Tips. Those sites are great if you’re preparing for a Cambridge English Exam, but I wanted a place to help you with other kinds of English too.
Me? Oh, you don’t want to hear about me. I’m not very interesting.
You do? Okay then!
I got a degree from the University of Manchester. That’s where I’m from, by the way. Same as Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Mick Hucknall (Simply Red).
I started teaching English in Shanghai during SARS. Next I taught in Taiwan (earthquakes, tsunamis).
After that it was back to Europe with stints in Poland and Prague. Finally I taught in Zurich for ten years, arriving just in time for the financial crash.
I was not a good language student. My teachers were mostly fine, but the lessons were boring. Who would want to learn a language in that old-fashioned way?
So I promised I would never be so boring. I wanted my lessons to be fun, or interesting, or both. And that’s true on this site, too. The articles and online courses are serious – you will learn a lot. But they’re fun too.
Here’s a picture of me in a summer school in York. We took them around the school at night. I told ghost stories while the other teachers made noises or laughed from the shadows.
That night, the students learned a little bit about English and a lot about fear. Mwahahahahaha!
The EFL Academy Team
Andrew Girardin
English Teachers
