I am Carito, your Colombian Spanish teacher. I have experience as a Spanish teacher in the University Sergio Arboleda in Colombia

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• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origin or was it, for example, because a teacher motivated you to learn more?

  I speak and teach Spanish because it is my mother tongue. But it was my French teacher who motivated me to study Modern Languages. I have studied Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. I love what I do because it lets me share my passion of teaching and learning languages, meeting people from different nationalities and sharing culture.
  
  Despite the fact that Spanish is my mother tongue, I like to keep up with courses about grammar and language teaching methodologies. I also like speaking with my friends in Spain and from different countries in Latin-America because it lets me see the diversity in vocabulary and cultures.

• Cite a person, historical or fictional, who in your opinion is the symbolic representative of this culture.

  Roberto Gomes Bolaños was a Mexican, comedian, actor, screenwriter director, producer and one of the most beloved comedians in Latin America. He also was known as "Little Shakespeare" or "Chespirito".
  
  Several generations have grown up watching "Chespirito". From my grandmother, my mother, me and my nephews. It was suitable for people of all ages, socioeconomical strata, and for all the countries in Latin America. He was able to play with the body language and the words in such a way that was funny. We have had fun with the series. Roberto Gomes Bolaños mixed the idioms and play with words that have two meanings, or with words that sound really similar in Spanish. He also plays with the sentences in such a way that makes us laugh.
  
  For example, one of the funniest moments I remember was when the main character called "El Chavo" (who is a kid who does not know how to read well) starts reading a letter to another person and he says similar sentences from the ones that are in fact written on the paper. When the other person reads the sentences that are written, they are completely different, but the funny thing is that what "El Chavo" reads makes perfectly good sense.
  
  For example el Chavo reads "Papá, voy a llegar casada con el viejo" (Dad, I am going to come back married to an old man) when in fact it was written "Papá, voy a llegar cansada con el viaje" (Dad, I am going to arrive tired from the trip). We can notice how Roberto plays with the words casado (married), cansado (tired), viejo (old) and viaje (trip).
  
  Despite being a Mexican series, it touches the hearts of different Latin-American generations, it was even translated into Portuguese. The series also taught different values we have to keep in mind as a society. I think the most important values were sharing, helping and caring about others.

• Is it a typical word, an expression, a tradition or a way of life that you think is particularly funny?

  Hacer Vaca - Hagamos Vaca!
  When we come to idioms or popular expressions most of the time they do not make sense in other cultures, even for natives when they are children and they are learning the language. When I was a child, and I heard people saying "hagamos vaca" (let´s make a cow). I was actually imagining they were building a cow. However, I did not know what for. I thought maybe it was a game. However, adults explained to me that this was an expression used to collect money in a group to buy something like food, drinks or other things.

• Why is it important to be able to speak this language, whether it is for education, profession or on a personal level?

  Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world. It is the official language in 21 countries: Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Spain and Equatorial Guinea. Spanish is spoken by more than 390 million native speakers.
  
  Learning Spanish can open up new opportunities for you as you can communicate when travelling to Latin America, Spain or Equatorial Guinea. Spanish can also help you if you want to establish new businesses in Spanish speaking countries.
  
  Even today in this global world, some people simply learn Spanish to be able to communicate with the family of their partner or to communicate with a Spanish speaker via internet.
  
  Whether it is for pleasure or business, I love helping my students to reach their individual language goals. I tailor my lessons to you.

• What is the biggest difficulty with this language and what can make the training easier?

  I think grammar is one of the hardest things because there are some structures that do not exist in other languages. I love to use the communicative approach to teach grammar. After having increased the vocabulary of my students, I give them the context and a specific topic where they can use what they have learned. This creates a safe environment that lets my students feel confident as they are working with the vocabulary we had learned in previous lessons and also it lets the student communicate with confidence using the new grammar structure.
  
  For me learning a new language is like knitting, first we learn a new topic and then we relate it with what we have learned in our previous lessons. Each lesson is interconnected 😊. I also give some helpful tips to improve pronunciation and to remember the vocabulary and grammar in a funny way😉.

• An anecdote related to your profession or your education you want to tell?

  In my personal experience, it is interesting to observe how most of my students make the same errors. I think mistakes are wonderful because we can always learn from them. Sometimes, I am surprised because I have never been aware of these common mistakes before starting to teach. For example, some of my students confuse "hambre"(hungry) with "hombro" (shoulder) or "hombre" (man) or "caballo" (horse) with "cabello" (hair), "rodilla" (knee) with "rodillo" (rolling pin) among others. Some students also say "la vestido" because it is piece of clothes for girls but in fact it is a masculine word with a masculine article "el": el vestido. Another interesting example is when they translate literally from English as in: Yo soy 19 años (I am 19 years old) or ¿Qué es tu número de télefono? (What is your telephone number?). The correct way to say these phrases are: Yo tengo 19 años, o ¿Cuál es tu número de teléfono?
  
  There are a lot of interesting things I have also learnt from my students in all these years teaching Spanish. I can say I have also learnt about my mother tongue and culture thanks to them.
  
  Another interesting fact is that I remember one of my students told me it was the first time he felt someone was really listening to him, and it is because I actively listen to my students and work as hard as my students for them to improve their pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. I also like to correct my students in a way in which they can correct themselves. Most of the time with a gesture or a sound, they know they made a mistake, and they correct it. Actually, they have fun doing this 😊

• Help us get to know you better by telling us about your different travels.

  I have had the opportunity to live in different countries and to travel in different places. I love to share my experiences and what I have learned from different cultures. I love sharing what I know about my culture and about Latin America. So, at the same time we learn the language we learn about culture. Sometimes I feel like a guide tour as I can share with my students my experiences of different places, festivals, museums, myths, history, legends, and more.

• What makes you a Superprof, in addition to the ability to speak several languages?

  I think what makes me a Superprof is my charisma and creativity. I design most of my lessons and I love to receive my students with a smile a welcoming attitude. I also enjoy the lessons as much as my students do. I have fun teaching, and my students have fun learning. I think that being motivated and enjoying a lesson is crucial to the learning process. I give my best so that my students feel comfortable, confident, motivated and most importantly happy in their pursuit of learning a new language.