Why Do I Love Teaching Spanish? It's All About the Connections

Many people are surprised to hear that in addition to being an online SAT coach, online college application counselor, online math tutor, online history tutor, and an adjunct professor of history (which now, of course, happens only online!), I also am an online Spanish tutor.  I love teaching students all of these things, but I’ll be honest. Online Spanish tutor ing is perhaps the most FUN! Why, you ask? Well…

First off, Spanish is one happy language.  

A college friend once remarked that the way that people’s faces looked when they said the word for “bread” in their native language indicates their general demeanor.  And when Spanish speakers say “pan,” their faces kind of make a smile.  Anybody familiar with la marcha madrileña, salsa dancing, or just hanging out with a group of native Spanish speakers, will agree that there’s just something FUN in the culture of this language!

 As an online Spanish tutor, I try to impart this light-heartedness into lessons.  In conversation lessons, I try to discuss anything that the student wants to discuss.  Often, allowing them to search for the word they’re looking for on Google Translate allows them to continue having fun.  Other times, I try to encourage them to find another way to say what they mean.

I loved this yoga teacher and her little studio in Liberia, Costa Rica!

Nowadays, it’s also really easy to encourage students to immerse themselves as much as possible in the language.  Television shows like Narcos are practically bilingual, and Spanish-language podcasts supplement the usual radio shows in Spanish for those who aren’t fans of merengue or reggaeton.  While I want my students to continue lessons with me, their online Spanish tutor, of course, I understand that it’s impossible for them to have a lesson every day.  So, through continuing to hear Spanish, hopefully from different voices and regions, they’ll improve their aural comprehension and eventually their ability to speak.

While reading and writing in Spanish have their appeal, for me, an online Spanish tutor, conversation carries the greatest joy.  

Through speaking Spanish, I have experienced amazing connections with others.  In 1988, I befriended Jorge, an exchange student to my high school; we’re friends and speak Spanish over WhatsApp till this day.  In the 1990s, I became friends with a whole group of Spaniards at l’Institut de Touraine, where we were all supposed to be learning French.  By the end of the month in Tours, I was dreaming in Spanish, truly a marvelous experience!  Traveling in Peru, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico, I’ve been able to share laughs and joke with natives, making me feel like I belonged in a place far from home.  

My Costa Rican tour guide, Aryeri, was the best!

In that home, New York City, Spanish has allowed me to connect

with: a cab driver, learning about his life story on the way to LaGuardia; a mom in Target for whom I translated her child’s school supply list from English; the Dominican custodian at the school I worked in; the old Cuban who happened to be the best salsa dancer at Lincoln Center that evening; my sister, with  whom I share secrets in  front of her children and my parents, none of whom speak Spanish!; many students at Bronx Community College where I teach history; and countless others in the Big Apple.  None of these connections could’ve been made in English, so I am so blessed to have had them.  As an online Spanish tutor, I help other people to experience their own connections, and learn first-hand that despite language, we’re really all the same.