Renny Barrios

I nave been teaching languages for 30 years, here in my home country I have taught English and Spanish as a private tutor and in small groups for different languages schools with different methods. This has helped me learn the different methods of teaching and develop my own method. My classes are 90% student focus, that means that the student brings the topics he wants to talk about, only the goal language is spoken and not one word in any other language. The basis of my method is teaching the way we learn our mother tongue, through practice, repetition and recreating real life situations. There is always some grammar and vocabulary time for reinforcement.

My background is that of an architect, sportsman, traveller and cook. So I encourage in my classes a lot of artistic talk like painting, sculpture, theater or music, sports in general, nature travel is one of my favorites and love to talk about any destination. The idea is to make cozy class where learning is just another pleasure.

Measurement of advancement is also important, so periodically we will test ourselves in the most playful way and/or according to any specific goal the student may have, perhaps an exam to take, an interview or an essay.

The two most important aspects of my method are adaptation and total immersion. Schedule, level of performance, topics of discussion and specific goals are provided by the student to make classes fully personalized. The use of only the goal language is key to make the student internalize it.