Experience Summary
I have always been fascinated with the Spanish language: its phonology, expressions, and many forms of the Spanish language. That love of Spanish caused me to formally study the language, and earn a B.A. and an M.A. in Spanish. My interest in Spanish also took me to Paraguay, and Mexico, where I lived for over three years.
Many of my employment positions allowed me to use my Spanish communication skills.
I have tutored part-time for over 10 years, taught high school, and done some light translation.
Teaching Style
I follow the teaching strategy of Total Physical Response with commands, and TPR for stories. I find that this gets the students engaged with the foreign language, and they start communicating in Spanish faster than if other teaching styles or strategies were used. I have had good success with TPR and TPRS. The focus of this strategy is teaching language the way a child learns his/her own language, starting with commands, and adding nouns, and adjectives to the verbal commands. Then, we progress into stories, and students interact with the words and phrases of the stories.