Why did you want to become a teacher?

Language lessons at school did not help me learn a foreign language (English, in my case). Most of the students in my generation failed to learn to communicate confidently, particularly in Spain. I wanted to make a difference. While in university, I started helping my brothers with English, then it turned more formal but still at home, with my cousins. By the time tutoring turned a bit formal it became quite evident that teaching would be my career.

What is your first memory from school?

A palette full of new smells. As I try to recall now, some come back as “fragrant flashbacks”:  the scent of new textbooks, the crayola crayons, the classmates’ different colognes, the chalk dust, (dry and wet), the glue, and particularly the smell of papers from the copy-machines (the old ones using a stencil).

What makes a ‘good day’ at school?

Usually it is that sort of day after which, if somebody asks what I did at school, or even, asks what I teach, it turns difficult to respond within a minute.

If I walked into your classroom on a typical afternoon, what would I see going on?

Most typically a conversations in small groups, a roleplay performance in Spanish or the class watching a film scene.

What’s the funniest thing a child has ever said to you?

In a language class, probably an unintentionally-produced pragmatically odd utterance, perhaps based on literal translations, or perhaps due to mispronunciation. We learn a lot from them.

What are your “trapped on a desert island” books or movies?

For films: Almodóvar, Kubrick, Wong Kar Wai,  Zhang Yimou.

For books, Don Quixote. It contains it all. 

What is the hardest thing about being a teacher?

The dynamic interplay between teaching and learning, and with factors like the individual student, the context, the developmental stages, etc. In two words: complexity and change. In any case, those are precisely the very factors that prevents teaching turning boring.  

What inspires you?

I get inspiration and motivation from a lot of sources, but particularly from people around me who help me feel creative.

What is your greatest accomplishment?

I coached the ICHK football boys squad from 2014-2017. In 2016 nobody dared to regard ICHK (a school most times a 3rd of the size of the others) as a strong team (we did not win a single match the season earlier), and individually we were not better than rival players. But we learned to perform magically as a team. The squad draw the first game, and after that the team won all the rest by very tight margins. Against all odds we ended at the top of the table. That dream-team was eventually nicknamed by parents (who often came to cheer) “The Invincibles”.

What would the students be surprised to find out about you?

I play tennis and I love it. I got an injury affecting right wrist and elbow with a very slow recovery progress, so I decided to relearn playing with my left arm. I see it as an example of perseverance and growth mindset and there is an analogy of how trying to communicate in a language that is not our strongest one must feel. Both learning processes are surely good for the brain.