My Professional Steps

From the very beginning of my career, observation has played a key role in my approach to teaching. In 1988, while pursuing a degree in Licenciatura en Letras (summa cum laude, from Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina) I chose to write on Germanistik. For this thesis, El Muro de Berlín en la Narrativa Alemana, I conducted research that required crossing the Berlin Wall in three occasions, into East Germany. Upon emerging from the UBahn at Friedrichstraße, I would begin studying the faces of people on the streets, scrutinizing their glances and behaviors, looking for those clues that would help me later predict in the conclusions of my thesis that soon the Berlin Wall would fall. A year later it did. It was this attention to details that has always guided my practice. Years later, when two former students called me looking for private Spanish lessons, I decided to start ELEPrinceton, a center for Spanish language learning. Each new student would be placed at the core of the learning process, tailoring my techniques and lesson plans to his/her learning needs. I realized that when certain conditions are present, such as a physical impairment or a learning disability, or even stress and anxiety, I had to apply different and specific methodologies, because one never truly fits all. At first, intuition and empathy guided me; but now, after much research into studies on Neuroscience applied to Education, I can better understand my learner’s perspectives, resulting in a more clearly personalized road to obtain a goal.

Recently, while teaching at an international school, I noted that language acquisition could be affected when learners came from a non-western educational tradition. To better resolve those cultural and linguistic differences, I decided to pursue a new degree, becoming a University Expert in Teaching Spanish for Sinophones -Chinese speaking learners- (from Universidad de Jaén, Spain). I realized that the “person first” approach does not only apply to people within the autistic spectrum, but also to those whose cultural differences might put them at a disadvantage in a western centered learning environment.

Spanish, the second most spoken mother tongue, has always been an incredibly worthwhile and useful language to learn. In recent years, it has also become a highly desired vehicular instrument in the business world, which is why I became Specialist in Teaching Spanish for Business (Universidad Complutense, Spain).

My professional experiences have resulted in several papers presented in US, Argentina, Germany and Spain; in workshops and courses for fellow teachers; in books for learning Spanish, published in Germany and Spain; in designing an innovative methodology to better cater to students with special abilities.

Throughout my career, my passion for teaching and my focus and care for my students has led me to follow a philosophy towards teaching that ensures that no student is overlooked or unconsidered in their needs. It is this philosophy that, I believe, guarantees success when applied in the world of education.