Akemi Jill Matsumura Vasquez

I am a Peruvian and Japanese descendent lieving in Frankfurt. 11 years ago, I had my first teaching experience in Brazil, where I could teach English and Spanish to students in high school inside an NGO program. Later, I had the opportunity to teach Spanish in Nagoya, Japan for 2 years to adults. In my homeland, I worked as a University teaching assistant and later as a lecturer for 4 years. I also could receive courses related to teaching methodology and evaluation design.

From my work experiences, but also from my experience as students learning languages and living abroad, I am committed to the idea that learning a language has an important emotional factor: the student has to related learning a language with a positive feeling: having fun, feeling curious or inspired, connection with a culture. Then, it is essential that lessons help the student with this process of connecting with culture and positive emotions. For this reason, I prefer to combined structured lessons (grammar, exercises, limited vocabulary) with playful and cultural activities as: songs, short and improvised conversations, games, internet memes and so on. Furthermore, I believe that assisting the student’s questions about language and culture is very important, as they are their own initiatives of activities. For example, the music they listen can have new vocabulary they want to learn. Encourage their own search for knowledge is key in tutoring and teaching.