I teach mainly first year all online Spanish courses.  I have taught second year and advanced conversational Spanish in the past.

A few things you should know about me: My mother is from Guadalajara, Mexico and my father is from the USA. I grew up speaking Spanish and spoke Tagalog as a child.  I love science and the idea of interdisciplinary studies and language studies coming together.  In part, this interest drew me to participate in the PBLL (project based language learning) institute in Hawaii.  I like the idea of creating learning situations that are meaningful and that reach beyond textbook learning and hope that our department will consider this in developing curriculum plans for the future.

Some ideas that have influenced my teaching have come from Bill VanPatten and his work on processing instruction and teaching language in context.  If you would like a quick overview of his work, please see TESL-EJ 12/05, V.9:3 at http://www.tesl-ej.org/ej35/r5.pdf .  I also have been influenced by The Green Thread workshop that I attended. The focus of this workshop included ideas for incorporating sense of place and environmental awareness in the classroom.  I would like to see topics like these become more common in language classes.