Well-read, educated and traveled Spanish language and history lover

Maria M.

I am passionate about language and culture, with experience teaching, using Spanish in daily life while living abroad as well as professionally as a social worker. I believe being a non-native speaker is an advantage. It took me way too many years to feel comfortable and fluent and I enjoy helping others learn from the mistakes of my teachers by personalizing lessons leading to maximum practicality. Amongst my many experiences, I have been a teacher of ESL, Spanish and French to elementary, middle school, high school and university students. I have also coordinated an after school and tutorial program and tutored individuals in English, French and Spanish. I majored in Spanish and History and minored in French and English at an undergraduate level during which time I was able to study in broad with Spain where I truly fell in love with Spanish. I then spent 2 years in the Peace Corps in Guatemala honing my Spanish skills through daily usage. Afterwards I completed my MA in Spanish: Latin American Studies at American University where the majority of my coursework was in Spanish. During that time I also taught and tutored and was able to serve as a translator and interpreter. I have been a practicing social worker now for over 15 years where I have been able to further develop fluency on a practical level. I believe that language instruction should be useful and practical and like to take an interactive and creative approach to teaching (rather than just drill grammar- which is necessary, but not the only thing). For example, I believe using music is a great tool for improving fluency, something I wish my early teachers had done. I am a big fan of various genres of music in Spanish. Contact me and let's see if we can work together!