"Hi language learner!

First, congratulations on your journey to learn a new language or further develop that beautiful home language you heard growing up. My native language is Spanish and I reached English fluency as an adolescent; I took high school French and had the opportunity to enroll in a French class senior year of high school at an Ivy League school where I completed my bachelor’s degree. As an adult, I am now interested in the learning of Semitic languages and I am now a beginner Hebrew reader. As you can see, I am an aficionada of languages but most important, helping others reach their language goals whether it’s acing a midterm exam or increasing basic communication skills.

I have ten years of classroom teaching experience and I understand the k-12 curriculum very well. Additionally, I’m keenly aware of the academic writing expectations in higher education across disciplines. I genuinely enjoy working with students of all ages and I am sensitive to the needs of neurodiverse learners. While experience in the classroom is important, I draw from research-based practices, neuroscience, and second language acquisition theories to inform my tutoring approach: Stephen Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis to increase modes of communication particularly in listening and reading, Noam Chomsky’s universal grammar theory, as well as Guadalupe Valdés’ research on sociolinguistics.

Learning a new language can be challenging for some and I am committed to providing a safe and enjoyable tutoring experience based on your proficiency level. Self-assessments are an important part of my tutoring sessions and if students don’t have a clear idea on what they need help with, we can work together to articulate areas of opportunity and create an effective goal-setting plan. I have experience designing AP Spanish courses and have served as an AP reader for the College Board. While my specialty is in language learning, I have experience teaching/tutoring academic writing K-12 as well as college level." less...