About Scott:

Greetings!

I learned Spanish through the "Point & Smile" method, relying on my body language to get me through. However, I want to share what I learned about this language with others, to learn Spanish and use it as a native of Latin America.

I have extensive experience living, learning and using this language. As a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, I was thrown into a culture and region very foreign to me. However, once I learned the language a whole new world was open to me. People, places, food, religion, culture, understanding of a people from the people, not a book or guide were some of the benefits.

But Guatemala was just the beginning. I returned to Latin America many times, as a researcher in the Peruvian Amazon, as a traveler through Central America, to earn a Teaching English as a Foreign Language Certificate in Mexico, and most recently as a teacher in Honduras. Through it all I have found that language is power, it opens up the whole region to a person and creates understanding about ourselves and others.

With this in mind, I hope to open up the world of Spanish to others. My teaching strategies are first-hand. The only way to learn is to use what you are learning. I do not subscribe to rote memorization and repeating of words and phrases that one does not use. I believe in innovative approaches, using games, situations and reinforcement to learn a language.

This is not only what I believe for teaching a foreign language, but for teaching in general. I will be attending UW-Oshkosh to earn my Teaching Certificate in Science and see tutoring a natural extension for my personal and career goals.