Personally, I have learned that predicting the future is not always so easy. For example, three years ago I was working at the British Council in Caracas. It was a dream come true and one I spent a couple of years preparing myself for. However, little did I know that the Venezuelan situation was about to worsen and make me quit my job for the better. Sometimes you may be willing to believe in what you do; to plant some seeds to harvest good results in the future, but sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where you do not have other options but to start for scratch once again. Nevertheless, I have never lost my faith for a better future and for that I continue dreaming. For the above reasons, I see myself planting some seeds at Colegio Gran Bretaña and I see myself learning and growing professionally within an institution well-known for its continuous development, innovation, and staff support. In five years, I see myself living in a small beautiful house in Bogota, with a master's degree in languages and a DELTA as well, with an online program that has been greatly improved, and with a teaching position at a prestigious institution like yours.

Are there any recent professional articles, books or conferences you have encountered recently that may have affected your practice?
On February 29th, 2019, I had the opportunity to attend an online webinar about intercultural competence in the foreign language classroom given by Professor Liliana Marcela Cuesta Medina and organized by Universidad de la Sabana. She discussed the importance of metacognition or thinking about one’s own thinking, which is basically the ability to think about what we do when we learn a specific matter. Additionally, she mentioned the importance of us teachers being able to transfer this metacognitive ability into the classroom to create a cross-curricular learning experience where students not only develop self-awareness in the development of new communicative skills in a language in a class but also out of it. Since then, I have tried myself to self-regulate my own teaching experience by thinking more carefully about what I do and the way I do. This, in turn, has helped me to better organize activities and learning habits that can foster students’ motivation in the acquisition of new concepts and the development of new language skills.

In this day and age, technology forms a critical component of school life. How computer literate would you say you are, and what are your opinions in the way technology can enhance learning?

Although Spanish is my first language, English has always been my connection to a world of different cultures and ideas. These professional and personal experiences have allowed me to explore new teaching projects in the digital era. One of those projects is English a la Carte, an online platform with learning programs designed to help students develop and foster their communication process in the English language. I am quite passionate about my career and I am always looking for new projects that are creative and mind-enriching. At the moment, I am serving as an online instructor in areas such as General English and IELTS preparation. I am also planning on teaching ESP and Business English soon. In this way, I have to say that technology has made this possible and without it, I would not be able to do all the things I have done so far. In this way, I truly believe that technology can enhance learning positively if it used properly. So far, I have had the opportunity to work with Moodle platforms in the classroom. They have been of great help to students as they can make use of interactive activities that explore different learning styles. Of course, I would love to continue learning about new ways to motivate learning in the classroom.

How would colleagues describe you in three words?
Committed, kind, passionate.

How would your students describe you in three words?
Strict, funny and intelligent.