About us
Every Spanish teacher at Isbilia is a world unto themselves
Celia Asencio Bonilla
I am the director and Spanish teacher at Isbilia Spanish Online. I have extensive experience teaching Spanish for both private and public institutions.
Additionally, I am an examiner of Instituto Cervantes’ DELEs. I have been working in countries such as Bulgaria (For You Organization), Russia (Southern Federal University and Federal University of Siberia) and China (Lola School, Guangzhou).
Why did I decide to be a Spanish teacher?
The reason is that I love teaching and communication is one of my passions. I use a range of methodologies. I favour flexibility and adaptability in order to suit each student’s needs and interests. I introduce my students to the language easily but with a view to providing them with in depth knowledge. At Isbilia Spanish Online we want our students to be able to manage complex situations in any kind of daily life context and to learn about the culture through the language in a way that is both authentic and engaging.
What else about me?
Besides teaching I am a journalist, researcher and writer. I have worked and collaborated for the Spanish press (La Voz del Sur and PeriodismoDeViajes.org) and radio (National Radio of Spain), as well as in digital magazines (proyecto-kahlo.com and pikaramagazine.com) over the last few years.
Nowadays, we live in a completely specialized world, and I consider that any profession must be done with a comprehensive worldview. For this reason, Isbilia Spanish Online believes that to be an effective Spanish teacher, one has to have a deep knowledge of other topics.
For example, being a good teacher entails reading, being informed about the cultural history of the Spanish language, the press and cinema. We cannot look in just one direction. In order to understand languages and be able to transmit them we must understand our history, culture and evolution.
My studies
- Dozens online Spanish teacher courses at ELE Internacional school and at Conmovimiento.com
- Master's degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Cadiz
- Cinema workshop at Casa Tomada (Sevilla)
- Journalism at the University of Seville
Juana Ana Ferragut Martínez
I am a French and Spanish teacher, but I also enjoy teaching History, Art and literature. I tend to think that learning the formal part of a foreign language such as grammar or vocabulary it is not enough to learn a language.
In order to learn about a foreign language, teachers must extend the knowledge of the students by integrating to their activities cultural subjects of the country as well, such as gastronomy, geography, etc. and understand in a way the character of the Spanish people and where does it come from and why for instance in Spain we speak also Catalan or Basque, would you like to know why?
Why did I decide to be a Spanish teacher?
I find gratifying as a teacher to constate day by day improvement on my students. The fact of being able to interrupt with them or make them interrupt among themselves is very engaging and motivate the students. They improve very fast. On the other hand, the advantage of teaching face-to-face is that is very efficient as you can adapt personalized teaching strategy to every student because every student has a singular way of learning as far as rhythm is concerned.
What else about me?
I have worked and lived in Paris for 22 years where I have worked for the turism industry teaching guides and tourism employees how to communicate in a foreign language. I have also lived in United Kingdom for 4 years. I have mainly worked for private schools and companies and I have participated in many ONGs campaigns for the alphabetization. The profile that I like the most working with are the adults because they are usually passioned about learning a new language and their effort is higher. I enjoy hiking and traveling and what I enjoy most is to learn, I am an eternal student.
Other personal thoughts
I became a teacher because one of my teachers inspired me when I was a teenager. After, when I had children, I understood how much I liked teaching them and their friends. And that´s how I decided to become a foreign language teacher. I went to university in Paris where I first had to learn French myself. You see? You can get as far as you want, motivation has a strange way to make anyone such a good learner.
My studies
- Master´s degree in Teaching ELE and EFL at the university of Seville.
- Master´s degree in Teaching at High Schools at University of Huelva
- Doble degree in Spanish language, Arts and Civilization and Specialist in FLE at Sorbonne Nouvelle University.
- Participated in conferences and research work about the bilinguism in children.
- Attended to many conferences and seminars about new teaching technologies, and engagement methodologies.
Raquel Lía Gorosito
Hi there! I’m Raquel and I’m one of the teachers at Isbilia Online. I enjoy working with students of every age and level have experience with very young learners, teenagers and adults as well as with intensive exam preparation and both business and general communication skills.
Why did I decide to be a Spanish teacher?
Although Spanish is my first language, I trained and started out as an English teacher and have more recently begun teaching Spanish as well. For me, the most important role of a teacher is to make sure that their students feel at ease, listened to and have their doubts and queries about new language answered. The overall philosophy of Isbilia and its student-centred focus works perfectly for me.
What else about me?
I’ve lived in number of places, including Argentina, Syria, the UK and various parts of Spain including Barcelona, Cádiz and now Seville. Beyond the classroom I have a wide range of interests including Spanish history, politics, animal intelligence and language, primatology, classical music, the history of art, psychology and of course, good food! I draw on these interests to try to connect with my learners and create engaging lessons for them.
My studies
- CertTESOL awarded by Trinity College London
- Arabic philology and Linguistics (University of Seville and University of Barcelona)
- Dozens of language teaching seminars and conferences attended over the last ten years