Instituto Cervantes
I worked for more than 7 years (over 4,500 hours taught) at this Spanish institution both in Leeds and in Manchester. During 2005 I was one of the coordinators of the beginners level at the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester . I was one of the senior staff teachers and I helped other teachers with their queries, organised for teachers to cover one another when necessary, assisted new teachers with course materials, and how to use our student database for the printing of course lists and the mailing of their homework.

During all the years that I worked at the Instituto Cervantes I always was a very active member of staff. For example, I always played a very active role in all of the Open Days. I worked at the library, informing prospective students on how to use the library and the materials available; I manned the administration desk dealing with enrolments; I performed and marked oral and written level tests to make sure the prospective students enrolled in the appropriate course. I also gave presentations to promote the Instituto Cervantes both academically and culturally on several occasions.

I taught all levels available at the Instituto Cervantes, from very beginners to proficiency level (A1-C2). I also developed and taught tailored courses (mainly for one to one or two people) and intensive courses. I strongly contributed academically by developing two translation courses, 20 hours each, aimed at degree level and proficiency level students who wanted to improve their Spanish while performing one of the most difficult tasks relating to a foreign language. Both were run once, sometimes twice, a year since 2001 until 2006, when I stopped working at the Instituto Cervantes. We used to translate Spanish into English and vice versa, thus reflecting on the particularities of each language and their equivalences in L2 and L1. In 2005 I started working on a new course for the teaching and improvement of Spanish. The name of the course was Conversaciones literarias. Using Hispanic Literature we would talk about a variety of topics, practice writing skills and discuss grammar issues that arise.

During 2005 I also worked with other colleagues in the preparation of new exams. Together we designed and developed new materials for exams. After suggesting and implementing the creation of our own audio materials, as I am familiar with the use of audio recording and editing software and devices, I was in charge of the listening comprehensions. I taught my colleagues how to record our voices in the computer using a software program. I gathered all the recordings, and edited them, recorded the activity headings and put the final product onto a cd.

I also worked in a project to correlate our teaching syllabus with the European Language Portfolio. This project was done globally in all the Institutos Cervantes around the world and the work was distributed in teams each one composed of some 5 centres across the world. Our Manchester centre was one of the team coordinators. We had to check and edit a draft document, written in the main headquarters in Madrid, by reflecting on our own courses and practice in our centres so that our teaching complied with the ELP's specifications. We did this first individually and then in several meetings, where five of us, the full time academic staff, and the Academic Coordinator discussed our own views and put together our team views.

Other
I have also worked with children and teenagers (mainly when I was living in Spain) teaching English as a Second Language. I am a qualified teacher of English as a Foreign Language and I also have a higher degree in English.
While doing the Spanish equivalent to the PGCE, the CAP (Curso de Adaptación Pedagógica), I taught EFL to 12-18 years old students in a Spanish secondary school. I worked in a Spanish language school teaching both English and Spanish as a second language. Also, I have been working as a private tutor of English and Spanish as a second language since I was 19 years old.