Why do you like teaching Spanish?

First of all, I love teaching Spanish because it is my mother tongue and I really enjoy sharing my
knowledge on both the language and the culture. Being a native speaker makes me feel more
comfortable teaching Spanish through immersion, in other words, teaching the language the same way
students learned their native language. I am also enthusiastic about teaching Spanish because it is
challenging and rewarding at the same time. Finally, as a language teacher I feel that I am always
learning not only about the language itself but also about new teaching methods and how to best
engage with students.

Would you rather teach adults or children? Why?

I know that teaching children and teaching adults is completely different, but the truth is that I really
enjoy teaching both age groups. However, as you can see in my resume, I have more experience
teaching young adults and adults. One of the advantages of teaching adults is that they usually enroll in
Spanish courses on their own volition, which means that they are normally motivated individuals. As a
teacher, I feel that it is really important to effectively keep their motivation by helping them achieve
their goals: activities focused on these goals, using realia, etc. Another advantage of teaching Spanish
to adults is that they come to class with an incredible amount of knowledge and experience so it is
easier to learn about their likes and dislikes and adapt the classes to them.

In whichever class you picked above, describe what a typical

class would look like in your classroom.
In order to answer this question, I have thought about how I would plan a lesson with the objective of
teaching students how to greet, say goodbye and introduce themselves in Spanish. This lesson is
directed for students in Level 1 or Starter level; these students would have taken some Spanish
lessons prior to this one in which they learned, for example, subject pronouns, the alphabet...
At the beginning of the class, I would greet them friendly and explain to them what the objectives of
the lesson are and the things that they are going to learn. At home I would have prepared a card for
each student's name and one with mine. In order to create a nice environment in the class, I would start
by taking the card with my name and saying: Hola. Me llamo Carmen.. After that, I would put the
card in front of me and I would write the sentences in the blackboard. I would leave all the cards on the
table and I would ask students to look for the card with their name and sit down. Depending on the
level of the students, I would also ask them to write one word that defines them with each letter of their

name. Then, I would ask each student to introduce themselves while they hold their card in a way that
the rest of the students can see their names. This is also a good time to revise spelling.
Once all of them have introduced themselves, I can use the questions Cmo te llamas? Y t? by
playing a couple of videos or audios with a conversation that looks like this: Hola! Cmo te
llamas? Hola. Me llamo ____, y t? Me llamo ____. Encantado. I would make sure students
understood the short dialogue and put them in pairs so that they can reproduce it with their own names.
Then, I would revise with them the verb llamar(se) and subject pronouns.
Following this activity I would practice the verb llamar(se) by asking them questions like Cmo se
llama tu compaero/a? Cmo se llama tu amigo/a? Cmo se llama tu profesora? Cmo se
llama tu padre/madre?.
The lesson would continue with different types of greetings and farewells being taught in an interactive
way. I would, for example, bring big pictures of clocks that show different times, images of people
shaking hands, kissing each other cheeks, etc., and cards with different written greetings and farewells:
Hola, Buenos das, Buenas tardes, Buenas noches, Hasta maana, Adis, Qu tal?...
and ask them to match the images with their corresponding phrases. In this part of the class I would
explain which greetings are used in formal situations and which in informal situations and also, I would
talk about body language in Spain when greeting and saying goodbye. I would give the opportunity to
students to try to explain body language in these situations in their own culture. Then, I would play
some more videos or audios with short dialogues using the phrases learned so that they can classify the
situations between formal an informal.
The class would go on with more active participation from the students (creating short dialogues with
the vocabulary learned and representing them in front of the class).
I would finish the class by asking them to summarize what they have learned during the class.