Steven Bullen

Hello! My name is Steven, and I am a TEFL qualified English teacher from the south of England. Currently, I live in Peru, where I am volunteering to build a community garden. As an English teacher, I offer relaxed lessons based around natural conversations. I like to get to know each student personally, so that I can help you to practice and improve in the areas that are the most important and useful for you. Tell me what your motivations are for improving your English, and let's get started.

Each student has different motivations for wanting to learn a new language, so I like to adapt my classes based around your personal goals. In our first lessons, I will get to know more about you and your reasons for wanting to improve your English. We will discuss your work, studies, hobbies and family, and from there I will plan your next lessons based around your own personal targets and interests. We will focus upon the vocabulary that you will need the most, and the areas of English that you would like to practice. Everything is about you and your goals.

I have been working on HeyLangu as an English teacher since the beginning of 2024. Prior to this, I worked as a private English tutor, giving lessons to adults and children, both online and in-person. I decided to become an English teacher during my first trip to New Zealand in 2016. There, I lived in a busy house full of travellers from all over the world. Many of them had travelled to New Zealand to explore the country and to find work, but were having problems because of their limited English skills. So, it was there at the kitchen table that I began giving informal English lessons to my housemates, and I started to see just how life-changing it can be to speak another language. When I returned to England, I enrolled onto two TEFL courses in order to improve my formal teaching skills. I gained a Level 5 certificate in teaching English as a foreign language, along with an advanced course in teaching English online. Since then, I have been developing my lessons as a private tutor.

After coming home from New Zealand, I also began studying to become a therapist, with a focus on humanistic counselling. I took a break from these studies in 2021, when I joined an international charity in Peru as a volunteer. There I helped to plan and deliver classes to local children on topics related to mental health and emotional awareness, but based around the joy of skateboarding - a sport which I have loved since I was a teenager. When I first arrived to Peru, I spoke very little Spanish. Suddenly, simple conversations about my work, my studies, and especially my opinions and emotions, were now very difficult. This process of learning a new language helped to shape how I now teach English. I understand how embarrassing it can be in the beginning, and how frustrating it can be when we want to express our own thoughts and opinions. Therefore, I always encourage my students to relax, to accept that they will make mistakes, and to learn at their own pace with help, step by step.