It is so wonderful to see our students make their dreams come true. Today I would like to tell you Caitlin’s story. I met Caitlin in Canterbury in one of the coffee shops I used to teach at, Chocolate Cafe, next to Canterbury high street. Caitlin had been learning Spanish through formal channels and short courses, and yet she was unable to speak Spanish.
But she came to me with a goal in mind, she wanted to get a job in Spain in a year or two and hopefully live there someday, but for that, she would need her speaking skills to improve. After a taster lesson, she decided to proceed with more regular lessons once or twice a week. We used to meet at a coffee shop or a pub in Canterbury to speak Spanish over a coffee.
I don’t like following textbooks if I´m preparing someone for this kind of goal. She had used textbooks before and studied a lot of grammar, but that never helped her conversational skills at all. So I applied the method that we use with all our students who wish to speak any language. After the first week, I got the idea of what kind of person she was, her likes and dislikes, and her strengths and weaknesses in learning a language. This allowed me to plan and adapt the method to suit her in particular, and lesson after lesson I created bespoke materials and homework that would help her.
She is a wonderful student to have, she is professional, committed, and resilient. She trusted my every advice from the very beginning and over little time she saw that my method really works. Not only I gained a fantastic student, but I also gained a friend for life. Eventually, she got a job in Alicante as an au pair, and 6 months before her departure she started doing 3 hours of Spanish lessons per week and made amazing progress.
I couldn’t be more proud! It brought me so much joy to see how much fun she was having once she started living with the Spanish family. She is a fantastic example of why I love teaching Spanish, and why I’ll continue investing my time and effort encouraging others to learn languages.