Hi, I’m Lauren.

This is the story of why I became an English teacher.

As a child, I loved reading. Every weekend, I came home from the library with a bag of books. I read them in bed at night with my cat under my arm. What a patient cat, right?

My favorite series of books was The Wizard of Oz. Sometimes, I imagined that the big granite rock in front of our house was a secret door to the land of Oz. I was a princess of Oz and could go there when I liked. At other times, I imagined that the rock was a map and I was a detective. I liked playing this game with my best friend. We studied the map, solved its mysteries, and told stories about our adventures.

I studied English literature in university, but I also spent an academic year in Spain. I thought this was a wonderful way to learn! I still read books and went to classes, but I also spent lots of time talking in cafés with my new Spanish friends and walking through the neighborhoods of Madrid.

Foreign languages became my new favorite hobby, and then my profession. When I began training and working as a teacher, I found that I enjoyed teaching languages just as much as learning them!

Multilingualism has made me smarter and braver. It’s given me a lot of interesting experiences. I’ve lived for a year in a tiny attic room in Paris, and I’ve spent two summers studying intensive Arabic. I’ve taught Spanish to teenagers in California, and I’ve taught French to my own children since the oldest was three years old. In 2011, I did the bravest thing of all. I sold my things and moved to Spain with my husband and a son who was learning how to talk. 

My most important work as a teacher and a parent is helping children to love learning as much as I do. We learn together through books and conversations and experiences, just as I did when I first came to Spain. We learn by reading and imagining and telling stories, just as I did when I was their age. Whether I am teaching a class, writing a story or creating educational materials, my goal is always to share the magic of language with children.