I first started teaching Spanish as a second language in1994 in San José, Costa Rica where I was
born and where I lived until 2001. There I was trained as a Spanish instructor by the Institute for
Central American Development Studies (ICADS) where I taught for more than 3 years. At the same
time, I was in school studying Communications in Universidad Latina de Costa Rica.
After leaving ICADS, I worked 3 years for the creative department of an ad agency in San José.
Shortly after arriving in Chicago, I took a Spanish instructor position at Berlitz, the worldwide
language school and received further training in language instruction. I also did some freelance
teaching at the University of Chicago Lab School and Ancona Middle School, which provided me
with a chance to experience yet another approach to language instruction: teaching kids.
In 2002 I began working as a youth organizer for a community-based organization which operates
in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. During this time, I did a lot of translation and
interpretation and became familiar with the non for profit sector in the city.
In 2004 I went back to teaching Spanish for different schools in the city and tutoring kids. I also
became a medical interpreter and started having my own students. Within a year, I took the
Instructional Supervisor position at Berlitz and became responsible for hiring and training new
instructors, monitoring senior instructors, counseling students, curricula creation and overall
quality of the instruction. Eventually, I left the company to concentrate on my “private practice”.
After 12 years of teaching Spanish as a second language on and off, I decided to work full-time in
my private practice in order to have more control over my teaching approach. Also, because I see
teaching privately as an opportunity to offer an alternative, without, what I consider the setbacks that
are present in most of the options available today.
