Cactus Teacher Awards winner & runners-up: Jan-March 2014

Thank you to everyone who submitted a comment about their teacher for the Cactus Teacher Awards last term (January-March 2014). As usual we received many wonderful comments about our teachers, and would like to thank both our students for taking the time to send in feedback and also our teachers for continually delivering such excellent courses.

We’re delighted to announce that our winning teacher was Lucie Prior, who taught our French Beginners 2 course in Victoria, London. Lucie wins a £100 voucher plus a certificate from Cactus and her student, Sophie Johnson, wins a free 10-week evening course.

Below are Sophie’s comments, along with three more of our best entries.

* Teacher Awards Winner: Lucie Prior (French Beginners 2, London Victoria) / Student: Sophie Johnson *

“My teacher, Lucie Prior, deserves to win this award as she is an exceptional teacher.

Her classes are lots of fun – after a long day at work and a trek across London, who would have thought that 2 hours of French would be something I would look forward to so much and leave on a high. Lucie is always energetic, dynamic and light-hearted and her classes reflect this. Her approach gets the best out of her students as she puts us at ease and has everyone participating right from the start.

Lucie’s classes are particularly enjoyable as they are so diverse. As well as covering the required grammar and vocab, we learn a lot about French culture. Lucie’s range of ideas and exercises always keeps the lessons fresh, including film clips, questionnaires, games, mime and song excerpts.

All in all I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 10 weeks and have certainly learnt a LOT. I can’t wait to start the next course and any other teacher wouldn’t cut it for me now! Thank you Lucie for your support and expertise!”

Teacher Awards Runners-Up:

1) Teacher: Aisha El-Turki (Arabic Beginner 3, Brighton) / Student: Evgeniia Makeeva

“My teacher, Aisha El-Turki, deserves to be nominated because she has a very confident, professional and kind personality. Those qualities are certainly important to be a great teacher. She makes everyone in the class very excited and we all always look forward to our next class with her.”

2) Teacher: Gaelle Monfort (French Beginner 1, London Bond Street) / Student: Katalin Zupcsán

“I would like to nominate our teacher Gaelle Monfort. Gaelle makes learning French really fun! I work full time so I often go to the course tired, but I always leave excited and feel like I’m improving well! For a 10 week course we found a really good place to learn – I didn’t think I would improve so much! I will sign up for the next course with Gaelle of course.”

3) Teacher: Romie Lamah (French Elementary 1, London Wimbledon) / Student: Rebecca Flower Cooke

“My teacher Romie deserves the best teacher award because she is always cheerful and friendly and after having tried so many different courses and ways of learning French (none of which have been successful – including one-to-one tutoring), I finally feel like I am learning and understanding a lot with Romie’s teaching. The mix of exercises and talks and discussions we have, have taught me so much new vocabulary and finally enabled me to understand French tenses. Thank you Romie!”

Congratulations to everyone and look out for our Teacher Awards next term – next time it could be you!

Cactus runs evening courses in London and in locations across the UK. The spring term starts in April and the Teacher Awards will run again (deadline Friday 27th June).