THE PRINCIPAL

Dr George Adams (Principal and Founder of OTHK) brings thirty years of experience to the task. He grew up on a council housing estate in North East England. He went up to Oxford University to read Modern Languages in 1976.

George Adams spent a year in Heidelberg as a language assistant at the Hoelderlin Grammar School in 1978 and subsequently became an assistant at two Cantonal Grammar Schools in Zurich in 1980 and 1981. He also taught English at the University Extra-Mural Department and was a director and actor at the Zurich Comedy Club. Dr Adams read many works of English literature onto tape for the Swiss Library For The Blind. He won a Swiss national competition prize for his German writing.

In 1987, shortly after getting married to a Swiss/Australian national, he served as a Foreign Expert in the People's Republic of China and came to Hong Kong in 1988. He was awarded a Senior Postgraduate Studentship at the English Department of Hong Kong University and completed his Ph.D. thesis on English learning in Hong Kong under Professor Roy Harris in 1992.

In Hong Kong George Adams has been a full-time secondary teacher, full-time English lecturer at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and has taught part-time at nearly all the Hong Kong tertiary institutes. Dr Adams successfully completed the Common Professional Examination in Hong Kong and English Law at HKU SPACE/Manchester Metropolitan University. In recent years he has taught English, French and German to children of all ages at a number of tutorial schools. He taught German at the French International School. He has taught Law and Business Law.

For ten years, George Adams also wrote and/or edited all the main teaching material for Hong Kong's leading English 'glam tutor', Joseph Li.

George Adams has published six books and his stories have been anthologised in United States compilations. He has been a presenter for RTHK Radio Four and a music columnist for the Hong Kong Standard. He was a prize-winner in the SCMP Short Story Competition and has been active in Internet journalism since 1995. The USC Annenberg School of Journalism termed him 'one of the fifty top names on the international web'.

Dr Adams specialises in 'struggling students', 'reluctant students' and 'remedial work'. He is skilled at lifting students from a middling performance to one of distinction. He is also an expert at calming examination nerves and resolving scholastic and parental despondency.