I am a Native Qualified Modern Foreign Languages Teacher of Spanish or English having completed my tertiary studies in Argentina in 1992. I am also an Italian citizen. Accordingly, I am multilingual and speak four languages fluently: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English.
I have experience of working as an Interpreter in the health and social care sector in London, and have been a Spanish language teacher for more than 30 years in Buenos Aires, London and now in Valencia.
I was born in Argentina (a Spanish speaking Country), where I studied Spanish as a career. When I was fourteen years old I started my formal studies in English, and I obtained a PCE, (Proficiency Certificate In English) as well as an intensive course in Italian. I have also spent a lot of time in Italy to learning about Italian culture. And having visited Brazil (a Portuguese speaking country) many times to spend time with another branch of my family, I learnt to speak fluent Portuguese as well.
My teaching experience started in Argentina, 30 years ago, working in a secondary college as a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages, teaching English . This has given me the skills to teach in different school settings. I enjoy teaching Spanish and English to students from different ages and cultures and feel very proud when I see their progression.
During the performing of my work, in an Argentinean college, I gained a lot of experience in planning the lessons, teaching, and working with pupil assessment. The students were able to speak English in their breaks as well as to enact a play in English.
Also taught English to professionals so they could get job interviews or achieve a good understanding of all information in their workspace.
I went to London in 2003 and commenced work teaching Spanish through an agency. I also gave private tuition, where I experienced teaching Spanish to a group of English speaking health professionals at North Middlesex Hospital. This was to enable them to help with their patients, and preparing them for travel abroad or to work. The classes involved a particular terminology and concepts which I had to teach to the clients and make sure they understood how to apply the new words. These tuition sessions proved to be very successful.
I continued studying when I was in London and I gained IELTS diploma, International English Language Testing System , which is the highest level of English language for bilingual people . As well as diploma in the area of Health Interpreting (Health and Social Care Interpreting Certificate. NOCR London Region )
Another successful situation was coaching private students, who were due to sit their GCSE and “A” Level exams (AQA, OCR, Edexcel and IBO). In Valencia they take EOI, Cambridge and Pearson’s exams.
Even more demanding and satisfactory was training school teachers who wanted to improve their knowledge of pronunciation, and how to use the Spanish language in classroom, involving different techniques, suggesting ideas and activities they could use in the classroom. This often involved producing different material and attending the sources to suit every person’s needs.
In 2007 I started to work at different primary schools as a teacher of Spanish across KS2. As a result of the observations of my classes I was complimented on my work. I was informed that my lessons are well structured and include a variety of tasks that suited the pupils. This variety made for a happy, well motivated learning environment and kept the classroom focused, organized and on target.
In 2011 I came to Valencia and I started working for various schools, colleges and international companies where I have taught all ages and levels and different types of professionals. Parallel to this, I have obtained the TEFL Certificate (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).
My aim in the classroom is to allow the pupils to gain enjoyment from the lessons. I award them for expressing themselves creatively and for applying and developing their knowledge of the subject. I always develop lessons with the pupils’ exams in mind and explore strategies to help them improve their learning, regardless of their level or ability. Clear differentiation and lesson objectives are crucial to their success. It is clearly necessary to produce different resources and to attend to the needs of each student throughout every lesson.
Further to this, I like to make use of ICT during my teaching because all schools I have taught in use interactive whiteboards. Consequently, I am a confident user of ICT within the class and enjoy utilising this resource to create interesting and stimulating resources.
I always give constructive feedback throughout my teaching and in my marking, and also encourage the students to improve their work. The feedback I like to provide to the parents or guardians includes the pupils’ performance levels and strengths and weaknesses.
Due to the high expectations I have for all of my pupils, I always stretch their knowledge so that they achieve to the best of their ability. Therefore, I provide challenging lessons where they can achieve their goals through their own hard work.
It is very important to mention that throughout my work I have focused on developing strategies for behaviour management. I work on positive behaviour management and I use praise as a key tool for monitoring students as well as mention rewards for exceptional contributions to lessons. Remaining positive in the light of bad behaviour by using a balance of praise and sanctions is essential to creating a positive learning environment.
In May 2020 I obtained the T.E.F.L certificate,
TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE,
which allows me even more, to continue teaching my English learners, who live anywhere in the world.
To sum up, teaching a new language or a second language requires vital links with the culture and also with different accents. This was another resource used in classrooms as part of the lessons. In addition being a native speaking teacher enables me to give an accurate pronunciation with a perfect accent.