LETTER OF INTENTION February 22 2018

Medellin
Colombia

By: Sebastián Posada

My name is Sebastian Posada, I was born in Medellin, Colombia in 1988, and I’m a powerful, congruent
and charming person. I live in El Poblado with my parents and my siblings, my older brother Nicolas is 31
and currently works in the IT Department of Deloitte in Bogota, he studied Business Administration in
EAFIT. My sister’s name is Veronica, she is 27 and studied Graphic Design in UPB and did a Masters of Arts
in Visual Culture in Westminster University in London (she got a scholarship), and currently she is working
at Colegiatura Colombiana de Diseño in Medellín. My father Felipe works as a Life Coach, and my step-
mother Lina is the manager if her father’s company. That’s the brief about my family.

As for myself I studied high school in San Ignacio de Loyola High School in Medellin, and graduated from
there in 2006. I started my International Business Undergrad Program in 2007, this decision was mostly
influenced by my advanced knowledge of English at that age, I got 84/100 in the MELICET Test, EAFIT
required 75/100 to admit new students in this program. I finished my studies at EAFIT in June 2012, started
working two weeks after my graduation ceremony in a software company and I was there until November
2012, but I had differences with the manager so we both decided it was time for me to leave, after that,
in February 2013 I started working at Protokimica S.A.S. as a manager of Imports1, I worked there for 1
year and a half but I decided to change my life and so I resigned from that job and started anew, I started
studying Art and Illustration to complement my study skills. My passions are video games, board-games,
movies, and fantasy illustration, I’ve always been very geeky and have collected and painted many
fantastic miniatures and played many video-games, so I like complementing my career with art of this
nature. It is fun to know that much part of my English comes from doing those activities, since most of the
material is English.

1
As a International Bussiness Assistant I had to speak, read, write, and listen English all day long. I had the
opportunity to speak English with Chinese, Korean, Indians and Japanese, which is quite a experience because it is
very hard to understand their pronunciation.
As such English has allowed me to access great knowledge in the art field, knowledge that is not available
in some other languages such as Spanish, I feel my mission is to help non-English speaking people from
the world to learn English because there is a huge amount of knowledge in different fields of study that is
only in English which stops people from becoming better in their fields, and even hampers the chances
of some third-world countries of becoming more developed, because their professionals sometimes lack
this very basic skills.

By working as Teacher of English as Foreign Language I will have the chance to keep perfecting my English.
The experience I got studying International Business in EAFIT polished my English thanks to the subjects I
went through in the language and the chance I had of doing my 1 full year internship in Arizona.

I have a special strength in my English, that is, I know how American-native people actually talk in their
natural environments, and I know how they refer to things in a regular day to day basis. Normally, when
people learn at classrooms they learn average grammatical structures and the way the language is
correctly spoken, -which is very good since is a primal approach to the language and strives for the long
term survivability of the correct spoken English- nevertheless when people go outside and start to get
related to natives from whichever English Speaking country they are visiting they start to see that the
actual way people speak differs a bit from what normally is taught at class, a lot of idioms, expressions,
contractions, and slang is used to communicate in the day to day life, for example, I lived in Arizona and
when I got there I notice people use a lot of slang, for example, they say “Legit” when something is nice
or over the standards, or they would also say “this is way through the roof”. Normally people in classroom
don’t get this sort of tips on how to understand the native. So I think with my knowledge of the day to day
expressions and idioms I can add new knowledge to the classes, besides they will live this culture by
themselves so we can share experiences.

Besides, I learned in English in Colombia and I have taught Spanish native speakers for more than 3 years,
I know what are the needs of people learning English as a foreign language and I can relate that to my
own experience when I was learning English. I feel the experiences I have had in my life can be of great
value for students looking to learn English, especially students from foreign countries that are going to
the USA to learn English.
I feel I can also enrich courses by showing people Colombian culture and showing them the amazing
country we are, I can help demystify and the common myths about Colombia and help them broaden the
view of the Latin American situation. Besides, Colombia is a country (and specially my region, Antioquia)
that has had a great relationship with the USA across the years. Colombia is also a great power in the
Latinization movement, and our music, and dances can also be a great asset to show people how to
appreciate diversity in the world, reggaeton, salsa and merengue are some of those assets.

I am creative and cheerful person, but at the same time a very grounded and serious person when the
occasion needs it. I’m conscious and I can easily distinguish the seriousness or joyfulness of a situation to
adequately behave, so I can take care of a classroom easily. I have been in many Coaching Training sessions
and I know which are my weaknesses and my strengths. I have gone through Coaching with “Vision &
Enfoque”, “Ingeniería de lo Imposible”, my father and many other institutions. I like working for myself in
order to grow smarter and wiser each and every day. I know I can contribute with wisdom and problem
solving attitudes if any occasional discussion or situation between students arises, this means I can also
exert discipline if needed.

My weakness as a teacher is grammar. I need to build up more knowledge on this topic and I expect to do
it as I keep growing as a teacher. The source books used for the courses are a good way to start learning
as I teach, and with my discipline I can get the hang of it. Another strategy I will use is doing a proper
preparation of classes, investing at least 1 hour every day to prepare my classes so I can come with a
proper line-up of the activities the group will be working on during the classes.