Raquel G.

I would describe myself as a very dynamic and passionate teacher who genuinely enjoys teaching. This is very motivating for my students as they also enjoy my classes as I do. My teaching is innovative as I am continuously looking for ways of improving my classes. While teaching I apply an integrative approach to the development of communicative skills focusing on tasks. I use technology in a meaningful way, with clear goals, so students get motivated and learn in an interactive and playful way. I also focus on stimulating skills such as collaboration and communication skills, leadership, scaffolding, cultural awareness, etc. I try to involve my students in their own learning process by recreating plenty of possibilities for them to work collaboratively, taking responsibilities and making decisions. In addition, I am very interested in motivation as I am convinced that motivation is the key to success. I inject humor in my classes as much as the situation allows it and students enjoy my classes even when they learn new grammar, vocabulary, expressions, concepts, etc. I always try to awake in them the interest for learning, so they become independent learners and self-manage their learning, reach their full potential and hopefully become lifelong learners as I am myself.

In our first session, I will get to know my student, I assess her/his Spanish level and try to understand her/his needs. It is essential to understand the student’s needs to be able to help her or him Then we discuss what are the step to work forwards for her/his improvement.

It is very important that students are well organized and have clear small goals to achieve the final goal. We will design a plan to get the best grade possible. Working purposefully understanding what they need to improve to get there. Also, I try to involve my students in their own learning process by recreating plenty of possibilities for them to work collaboratively, take responsibility, and make decisions. I share with students strategies to improve their Spanish skills and help them to set goals.

As I mentioned before I create opportunities for students to make decisions and take ownership of their learning that motivates them. Also, I use short videos to introduce tasks and elicit students’ world and language knowledge. Also, I use online tools to create learning materials for my students, such as vocabulary lists, grammar content, etc. Furthermore, I use platforms like Nearpod to create interactive driven lessons which are very useful when teaching remotely.

I will look for strategies to support my students. I am a very reflective teacher and I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching. If I know my students well and their learning styles I am confident that I can find a way to support them.

As I mentioned before I would share with students learning strategies that always take into consideration their learning styles. Every student is different and has different strengths and weaknesses. In general, I will teach the student to guess the meaning from the context using their world knowledge and experiences.

In my experience, it is important to teach students to be reflective and reflect on how their actions and decisions have influenced their outcomes and how they can improve. What they have to change for next time. Self-reflection and auto evaluation are key learning strategies for every student.

I used topics that my student is interested in and I try to use different teaching strategies to understand what helps my students to learn better. When students see the improvement they get more engaged. I try to prize their small achievements and help them to grow more confident in the subject.

It depends on what we are doing. If we are working on reading comprehension I would do questions to make sure that the student understands what we are reading. If I am explaining grammar I would give the student a task to see if he or she has understood. It is important to practice a lot to make sure that students not only understand the material but do not forget about it. In order to retain the material in the long-term memory, it is important repetition throughout the time.

I think it is important to acknowledge a student's small achievements and build up from there. I believe in the theory of “input + 1”. So I give the student a task that he or she is able to successfully complete plus a small increase of difficulty that makes the task challenging but manageable. I like to acknowledge my students' strengths but we also work on their weaknesses, getting better step by step.

I like to know my students. I listen to them and observe them. I learn a lot from them by correcting their homework and analyzing their mistakes. When I know my students' mistakes I know how I can help them. Sometimes it is not about grammar mistakes, it is more about thinking and writing skills. Then, I prepare tasks to support this kind of learning need and share with them strategies to prepare for the exams.

Well, when you are teaching one-to-one it is much easier to adapt my teaching to my students' needs. I think one key factor is to have well-organized classes with a variety of tasks so I can take the task that is more suitable for my students' needs at that moment. Also, I am a very reflective teacher so I would take time to think about what has worked well or not so well with the student and why. So I can improve for the next class.

I like to use presentations to explain grammar points. In general, I like to use real materials and I adapt to them if needed. It all depends on the proficiency level of my students. Also, I used a lot of videos and interactive materials. I use google docs to create interactive workbooks. These workbooks can contain videos, grammar tutorials, Quizlet sets, reading comprehension, grammar practice, etc. I like it because I can follow my students' progress, and correct their work in real time. At the same time, they have the tools to learn independently. For example: do some Quizlet sets with the vocabulary they need to know to do reading comprehension.