Wonderful to Have You Here
Would you like to learn how to communicate in English or Spanish? Would you like to improve your English or Spanish for business, travel, studies or pleasure? I will be delighted to set out on this learning journey with you.
My classes are tailor- made to suit the objectives and learning styles of each student.
I create content and structure classes according to the particular and specific interests and needs of my students. I use films, podcasts, talks and presentations, articles, poetry, art, scientific, medical, historical and business journals to generate conversations with students. Using live materials on topics that are interesting to students, we embark on the active use of language in our classes.
Language is learned in action, in the action of listening, speaking and exchanging; it is learned in the action of putting words together to create meaning and convey ideas, messages, feelings, requests and information. Language is words strung together on a connecting string that is grammar and is itself a connector, a key, that opens onto a world of multiplicity which enables us to find out about other cultures, about how our fellow humans live on this one planet. It facilitates our exchanges and negotiations and helps us transmit content, bridge and create relationships. English and Spanish are two of the languages that we can use to engage with the world.
The methodology of my language classes is based on first language acquisition: the way in which we learn our first language. We learn our first language by observing and listening to the sounds that indicate meanings in our world. We learn to associate sound with object in context and in that total immersion, without any explanation of rules or grammar, we begin to put words together to express ourselves. We learn to speak by observing, listening, reasoning and practicing in trial and error.
I approach second language acquisition relying on our innate capacity to learn language and on the mental processes that we develop when learning our first language.
I conduct classes in English or Spanish. From the very first class, students are invited to use the words they have as best they can to convey their thoughts and ideas. We use images and texts to generate our topics of conversation and as needed work on vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar. We work on speaking, listening comprehension and written expression. We build our language learning on what is required in the moment to express thoughts and ideas: we access the vocabulary that is needed and the right grammatical structures that transmit and express these ideas clearly.
It is in the context of expressing and conveying to others (and ourselves) something that is meaningful and important, that language learning becomes most interesting and pressing. We learn language because we must express ourselves to participate, understand and engage with the world we choose to be a part of.
It is a pleasure to accompany my students on this wondrous discovery; it is a joy to witness how speaking a new language transforms. I invite you to embark on this journey with me as your teacher. I will guide you with interest, patience, structure, enthusiasm, humor and a deep love of language, learning and teaching.
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Nice to meet you
Let me tell you about myself. Language, art, travel and curiosity are constants in my life.
I was born into a multi -cultural, multi -lingual environment. I learned English and Spanish simultaneously so I have what is called a bilingual brain! At the age of ten, I began to move around the globe first with my parents and siblings and later continued moving from country to country on my own and still later with my child, Billy. I learned a few languages along the way (as did Billy) and so I know from personal experience the joys and challenges of learning a new language.
I work with seven languages and teach three. I translate texts of all sorts and especially enjoy simultaneous interpretation. I find the mental rigor of simultaneous interpretation to be especially exciting.
My first encounter with clay was astonishing. My father, together with a group of potters, ran a ceramic factory that was a cooperative. On a very special weekend, my father took me to the factory. As I waited for him, I wandered around the kiln room and into the pottery room where I sat down on a bench directly in front of one of the potters.
He was working on a kick wheel and had a huge hump of clay on the wheel. I sat and watched him turn that lump of clay into goblet after goblet. I must have looked astonished as I sat there transfixed, utterly mesmerized and transported into the clay. At one point he looked at me with amusement and a twinkle in his eye: he saw in me the wonder that I felt. I watched his movements and gestures one after the other-all the same, over and over again, rhythmical, precise and graceful in constant flow.
I remember thinking that it was magic. I thought that I had witnessed magic before my very eyes. I have never forgotten that image nor the awe I felt at that moment. It was that very feeling and image that led me to sit at my first potters´ wheel when I lived in the Middle East.
I began to take photographs very early in my travels. As a young fifteen-year-old living alone with my grandmother in a secluded area, I soon found that my camera connected me to my surroundings and so it became a way for me to relate to the world. I began taking photos of swans on the lake close to her house and have continued taking photos to this very day. Today I work in mixed media, jewelry design and ceramics. Please take a look at my work in the Art section of the website.
