Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham Lincoln
Ever since I was a child, I always wanted to learn languages. My mother was from Almuñécar, a small town on the Costa Tropical of Granada, not so small now, where we spent our long summer vacations. At that time, the few foreign tourists who visited the town were mostly Swedish. Platinum blondes, red as a tomato in the Andalusian sun, frequented the few beach bars available, mingling with the Spanish tourists, mostly from the city of Granada. Some foreigners spoke a little Spanish, since, having bought a house in the first resorts built on the coast, they often came to enjoy the sun, fried fish, flamenco and, above all, sangria.
I wanted to know everything about these pale beings, with eyes as blue as the sea, devoid of the complexes and strict social behaviors existing at the time, the sadly famous “qué dirán” (What would people say?. The problem was the language. They spoke very strangely, with sounds I had never heard in my life, let alone that on the coast of Granada people also articulate some very particular sounds, but those were no longer unknown to a Madrilenian, son of Andalusians, like me.
A few years later I joined a language school, and since then, I have not stopped learning, traveling, and getting to know other cultures. I lived in Italy and the United Kingdom for some time in order to learn and strengthen my language skills. That knowledge introduced me to the fascinating world of Tourism, where I worked for more than ten years as a tour guide. Soon after, I opened a tour operator dedicated to offering tailor-made tours to special interest groups. Later, I opened a rural hotel in my beloved Almuñécar, and some years later I fell in love and came to live in Germany, from where I am writing these lines.
Now I teach languages in several universities and vocational schools in this enigmatic country. From this unbeatable geographical location, I have visited all the surrounding countries with my family, and German will not be the last language I will learn, and possibly not the last country I will live in either.
Teaching languages, by creating a productive and stimulating learning environment, student-centered, challenging and fun, that fosters confidence and encourages young people to reach their full potential, has always been of major interest along my professional career.
My teaching style is based on the AEIOU system. Attract Attention, show Empathy, promote Interest, maintain Order and then, teach the Unit. By gaining their attention, raising their interest, showing empathy by being available, approachable and helpful, and maintaining order and a collaborative environment in my classes, I am able to successfully execute the other more technical teacher’s roles as instructor, arbiter and examiner. A collaborative negotiation of contents with the students and teachers of other subjects will, definitely, boost the student’s attention and show them my empathy towards their interest and goals, but most importantly, it will provide an unlimited range of contexts where we can teach and the students can practise the language.
In the past years, I’ve gained an extensive experience in various fields, Education and Training skills as Spanish and English teacher in professional schools, Kindergarten, private and language schools, as well as in Personal and Business Management, Project Management and in particular from all the resulting troubleshooting.
Allow me to emphasize here that communication, both written and spoken, was always very important in all of these functions. Communication that I can broadly perform thanks to my language skills since I speak fluently Spanish, English, German and Italian, I have worked in different continents with many people from diverse social backgrounds and I feel in such environment particularly well.
I am sure I can overcome the challenges of a teaching position through my experience, my wide communication skills, through hard work and my willingness to constantly live life as a learning process; flexibility, enthusiasm, coupled with patience, perseverance and a gift to provide a realistic assessment of my experience complete my personality profile.