My name is Emily Ackerman and I am an American TEFL certified English teacher. I am currently living in Barcelona teaching English at a school called the Green Monkey. I am new to teaching as I just graduated from University in May 2016. I studied International Relations and Spanish at Boston University.

I have a passion for traveling and I am fulfilling that passion through teaching English and living abroad. I love trying new things and being pushed to grow by going outside of my comfort zone.

I am dedicated, responsible, and hardworking. I always complete my work on time and to a high standard. Furthermore, I love combining my creativity with my work and planning classes and lessons that are fun and engaging for my students. It is important to me that my students have fun, feel supported, and are challenged in my classes.

I received my TEFL certification through an in person class at TtMadrid in Madrid, Spain. The certification course had a wide range of curriculum including grammar lessons, teaching practices, and learner profile evaluations.

Upon completion of my course I worked at two different schools in Madrid. One school is called Step Up School where I taught children and teenagers. The classes followed curriculum in a book and there were small groups. I also taught for a company called Brown and White Idiomas where I gave in-company classes to adults at the company Thyssen Krupp. The class sizes were about 5-7 students and they had advanced levels.

I just moved to Barcelona where I was hired at an academy called The Green Monkey. At the Green Monkey I teach children, teenagers, and adults in one to one and group classes.

Due to this experience and my qualifications I think I would be a great fit for Verbalplanet!

I use the PPP method of teaching. Each class begins with a small game or warm up activity to get the students talking and comfortable. The next part of the class is called Presentation. In the presentation there is either a reading, listening, or video that the students complete and then answer follow up questions. After that I focus on a specific target language for the rest of this class. For each class this could be something different such as a grammar point, a vocabulary theme, phrasal verbs, idioms, etc. Once the target language has been presented I move onto the Practice stage of the class. The Practice stage puts to work the material that we have just learned in the Presentation. Finally is the Production stage. In the production stage the students combine everything they have learned in some sort of activity such as a role play, a writing sample or a game.