English Language Teachers

Whatever your current level of English, our dedicated teaching staff can help you reach your language learning goals.

Our experienced English language teachers cover language improvement in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Classroom activities are interactive and structured around topical themes to keep language development relevant and interesting. English language support is offered in a small group (up to 12 students) and one-to-one study with a personal tutor.

Denise Hopgood

Hopgood Denise Hopgood is the ‘ELT Academic Director’ at St Clare’s and manages our English Language Teaching provision. She has been teaching EFL for over ten years, including six years’ experience in Barcelona, Spain. She has taught a range of courses since starting at St Clare’s in 2014 including, Summer English for teenagers, the University Foundation Course, English plus Academic Subjects and Teacher Training.

With a first degree in Economics and Politics from the University of Bath, Denise brings with her experience from a previous career in Central Government including a policy role at Her Majesty’s Treasury and project management roles in two of the UK’s economic regulators. Denise holds a PGCE in International Education from the University of Nottingham and has completed the Cambridge CELTA and DELTA English language teaching qualifications.

Denise is currently teaching and developing course materials for our online, spring and summer offering. In her free time, you can find Denise travelling and spending time with her family.

Geoff Taylor

Geoff Taylor teaches English as a foreign language (EFL). He has a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts from St Martin’s School of Art, London, an MEd (English language teaching and educational technology) from the University of Manchester and the RSA Diploma (TEFLA). After almost 10 years teaching abroad, mainly at International House affiliated schools, on three different continents, he returned to Oxford and has taught at the International College at the Banbury Road Campus since 1992. 

Geoff was lead writer of “Keep Going 2”, a text book for the German-speaking market, and more recently published “Sounds IELTS”, an interactive pronunciation tutorial app. He has presented at the IATEFL annual conference and, over the years, led many teacher development seminars. For a number of years, he served as IATEFL Computer SIG webmaster and then as International Baccalaureate Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA) webmaster. He has worked as CALL Co-ordinator, Senior Teacher, ADOS, Summer School Director of Studies, and freelance as an Apple Demonstrator and technology consultant. He is site contact person for the University and College Union (UCU), Secretary of his Labour Party branch, and an active campaigner for a fairer more tolerant Britain

Julia Gutierrez

Julia has been teaching EFL for over 16 years, working in schools in Uganda, Australia, China and Austria, as well as the UK. She currently teaches on the University Foundation Course and teacher training programmes at St Clare’s.

At the beginning of her career, Julia worked as a volunteer in rural Uganda where she taught pupils from underprivileged backgrounds. She later went on to become Head of Foreign Teachers at the renowned Sun Yat Sen Memorial Middle School in China, where her responsibilities included designing and administering bespoke teacher training sessions. She gained her Trinity Diploma in 2006 and became a Trinity approved Teacher Trainer in 2012. Furthermore, she has held positions as EFL Programme Co-ordinator and Academic Manager at busy and prestigious schools.

She has been an author and editor for the ELT Division of Oxford University Press since 2012. During this time, her work has included writing for their online testing system and the recent ‘Navigate’ course book, as well as preparing CEFR mapping documents for publications such as ‘New Headway’.

Julia loves travelling to new countries to learn about their culture and language. She also has a keen appreciation of the beauty of nature and enjoys spending time outdoors.

Keith Ibsen

Keith Ibsen is an English language teacher and has been teaching at St Clare’s since 2014. He studied Modern Languages at the University of Westminster, which included a year studying in Mexico. As well as teaching he has worked as a restaurant manager, waiter, barman and lifeguard. After university he completed his TEFL qualification in 1996 and taught in Spain and Japan before returning to his hometown of Oxford. Since arriving at St Clare’s he has been working towards his DELTA certification. He is currently teaching on the University Foundation course and English language courses. He is a keen traveller who has spent time in several countries over five continents. He is also interested in accents and languages, and as well as English he speaks Spanish and Japanese. In his spare time he plays too many board games, watches too many movies and drinks too much coffee.