Nadia Britz earned a TEFL diploma at 17, while still finishing school, and started teaching English online the day she turned 18. Six years later, she runs Nareva, an executive communication consultancy based in Pretoria, South Africa, with clients entirely outside the country. She helps international professionals who present, negotiate and lead meetings in English, especially when English isn’t their first language.
Her background is in psychology and linguistics. She sat down with Pensight CEO Yuki to talk about how tutoring led her to a niche, why fluent speakers still struggle in meetings, and what she tells new teachers.
When fluent English isn’t enough
The idea for Nareva came from her own lessons. Students would come to her thinking their spoken English was the problem. But many of them were fluent, with great vocabulary. The real problem was that people didn’t act on what they said.
Nadia saw the same patterns again and again. A client covers something important, and afterwards colleagues ask someone else what they were supposed to do. Someone else repeats the client’s point in different words, and the room agrees with them instead. Or the client, speaking in a second language, comes across as flat, hesitant, less warm, or even rude, and it hurts their working relationships.
“I realized there are so many more components than just language,” she says. It’s cultural, and it’s how sentences are structured and which phrases you use. German speakers, for example, often communicate very differently from English or South African speakers. “This is really a necessity for people, and it goes above and beyond English lessons.”
Three ways she works with clients
Nareva offers three services, all one-on-one and all live:
- Communication audit. A client sends a proposal, report or presentation before it goes out. Nadia reviews it in detail, flags language issues and structure that the audience may struggle to follow, explains what to change and in what order of importance, and rehearses how to talk about it.
- Presentation intensive. For a big presentation with a deadline, such as a trade fair pitch or a new business deal, she works over three or four sessions on structure, wording, delivery and the questions that might come at the end.
- Ongoing partnership. For people who lead meetings in English every week or speak regularly with senior leadership, she works on whatever is hard that week: meetings, documents and conversations already on their calendar. Her longest client has been with her for over a year.
She deliberately doesn’t sell videos or recorded content. “You can watch a video on YouTube and feel like you understand it,” she says. “In a one-on-one session, you see instantly where your mistakes are.”
What a client’s journey looks like
It starts with a free consultation to understand the person and their struggles. If they decide to work together, the client sends slides or documents so Nadia can learn their field first.
Then they work through the material in sessions. For a trade fair pitch, the client presents each slide as if to the real audience, and Nadia gives feedback on phrasing and vocabulary as they go. Then she looks at the bigger picture: maybe the goal should come first and past results last, or statistics should be explained differently for a non-technical audience.
Afterwards, clients tell her they felt more comfortable presenting and more eager to answer questions, without hesitating. One client landed a very important customer for their company, largely because they could answer the questions at the end well.
It’s okay to say you don’t know the answer yet. There’s confidence in that.
How she learned to teach
Nadia’s first year as a tutor was, in her words, scrambled. Even her intro video had a phonics mistake she didn’t know about at the time. She tried reading, then grammar, then different resources, and made plenty of mistakes along the way.
The turning point came when students who had covered every grammar topic wanted to keep going. She needed a way to help them turn structure into real speaking and writing. So she began building her own curriculum, then realized that one curriculum didn’t fit everyone. Some students needed more reading, some more listening, some more speaking. Today she makes workbooks personalized to each student, based on their needs, interests and daily lives. Some students have stayed with her for five years, even after becoming fluent.
What she tells new teachers
Nadia also helps other teachers start teaching online, sharing her resources, workbooks and even videos of how she teaches. She sees the same struggles. New teachers worry about whether they can trust a platform to pay them, since payment often comes after a month of work. They don’t know whether their method works or whether students are really learning.
And they are afraid of making mistakes. If a student asks something she can’t answer on the spot, Nadia says so, researches it, and covers it fully in the next lesson. “We’re not robots or computers,” she says. “We’re not going to remember everything in the moment.”
Finding her niche
Nadia began thinking about her own brand two or three years ago. She loved working with executives: hearing about their meetings and their work, and helping with that side of communication. As she finished her degree, she considered the usual path into clinical psychology, but she realized it was the linguistics she loved most, the structure and science of communication. “I thought, I’m really good at teaching and working with people. I’d love to specialize,” she says, instead of teaching everyone from three-year-olds to 60-year-olds.
Her advice to teachers building their own brand is simple: be patient. “You’re not going to become the most famous or the best teacher overnight. It takes time,” she says. “And it’s okay to make mistakes. People appreciate honesty.”
Find Nadia
Frequently asked questions
Who is Nadia Britz?
Nadia Britz is an English tutor from Pretoria, South Africa, who has taught online for about six years. With a background in psychology and linguistics, she now runs Nareva, an executive communication consultancy for international professionals who work in English as a second language.
Why do fluent English speakers still struggle in meetings?
According to Nadia, the problem is often not vocabulary but structure, tone and culture. Fluent speakers may find people don’t act on what they said, someone else gets credit for their point, or they come across as flat or less warm than they intend.
How can an English tutor find a niche?
Nadia found hers by noticing which requests she enjoyed most. Many students asked for help with upcoming presentations and meetings, and combined with her psychology and linguistics studies, that led her to specialize in executive communication.
Should language teachers leave tutoring sites to build their own brand?
Nadia hasn’t left hers. She built Nareva alongside her tutoring, because she doesn’t believe in putting all your eggs in one basket. Her advice is to grow the new business until you know it’s working.
What should a new online teacher do when they don’t know an answer?
Nadia says to admit it, look it up, and cover it properly in the next lesson. Teachers aren’t computers, and students appreciate honesty. There’s confidence in saying you don’t know yet.
When should a tutor create their own curriculum?
For Nadia, it came after her first year, once students had covered the grammar topics and wanted to keep going. She built a curriculum, then personalized workbooks for each student’s needs, interests and daily life.
Watch the full conversation between Nadia and Yuki on the Pensight podcast.
