Comprehension Cafe

My professional experience includes teaching elementary school in Costa Rica, adult English classes in Georgia, and grades 6–12 Spanish at a rural public school in Vermont. When I began teaching Spanish in 2014, I spent two years frantically trying to drill verb conjugations into my students’ brains faster than they could forget them. I marked up endless exams hunting for missed accents. I taught the way I had been taught because I didn’t know what else to do, and I had no sense of what my students actually knew with the grammar-and-vocabulary-list curriculum I inherited. Then I discovered comprehensible input. It turns out teaching a second language can feel both joyful and natural. Some of the best moments of my career happened in the classroom when my students and I were absolutely hysterical laughing at a story we had just invented together. Almost all of my students started passing and loving the classes. They were writing simple stories in Spanish 1, singing Spanish pop songs at every level, and, most importantly, remembering their Spanish from year to year. This is the power of comprehensible, compelling input.

Sitting under a redbud tree in Tennessee at age eleven, I read this line for the first time: “the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.” I’ll never forget the ache that sentence produced in me, the picture of peace those words from Tolkien conjured in my mind. I’ll remember the line forever. That’s where I truly learned the power of alliteration, imagery, and metaphor. What I don’t remember are the grammar-drill sentences that tried to teach me those terms explicitly. The explicit lessons only confirmed what I had already internalized through compelling input. Without knowing it, all the reading I did as a child was building an intricate mental map of language in my brain. My teaching style grows from that same truth: compelling, comprehensible input forms lasting language. I center my resources around interesting, fun, or downright ridiculous stories and songs that spark conversation and emotional connection. I believe we have the best job in the world because language teachers can teach about absolutely anything and still stay aligned with the science of acquisition. Now, as a mom of three little ones, I’m watching language develop naturally in real time. Given the right conditions, you truly cannot prevent a student from acquiring language. My hope is that my resources help you create those conditions in your classroom.

Some of the brightest moments of my career have been watching students who once insisted they “couldn’t learn Spanish” write entire stories, sing Spanish with confidence, and understand far more of my silly class commentary than they believed possible. Students laughing together over shared stories, and then remembering those stories years later, will always be the highlight of my teaching life. I also developed and implemented the Spanish curriculum and proficiency scales for grades 6–12 at the school where I taught. Seeing students grow within a coherent, proficiency-based system was both affirming and transformative. I have also mentored first-year teachers to support them in developing proficiency-based C.I. practices in their classrooms.

B.A. in Spanish, Summa Cum Laude — Berry College (2013) including: Honors thesis on machismo and marianismo in Mexican telenovelas Writing-intensive course on the full original Don Quijote Coursework in linguistics, SLA, Spanish art and history, and brain development Graduate training in: Classroom management Second language acquisition (theoretical + applied) Comprehensible Input pedagogy (multiple conferences and online trainings) College Board AP Summer Institute – AP Spanish Language & Culture (2021) ACTFL Advanced Certification in Spanish

After a decade in public education teaching hundreds of teens a second language, I faced my greatest challenge yet: becoming a mom to three children in three years. Ironically, this season has motivated me all the more to dive deeper into SLA research and develop the kinds of resources I can picture my children one day loving. Now I hope to use what I learn to build and refine resources that free educators to teach with joy, knowing that confident teachers inspire confidence in students. For more personal stories rooted in real successes and failures, along with research-based teaching tips, freebies, and store updates, follow Comprehension Café and use the links at the bottom of any product description to join my email list.