Profile

María Ana Chavana Villalobos joined the Languages for All team as a part-time Spanish tutor in October 2011.

Maria has over 25 years’ experience in modern language teaching, and holds a BA in Applied Linguistics, an MA in English language teaching, and a PhD in Education. She spent 15 years teaching English at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico, where she also ran courses on study skills, language and culture, and learner autonomy, and developed her interest in supporting students in the development of their employability skills.

For 8 years, she was the academic coordinator at The British Centre, Monterrey, where she worked closely with HR departments in the manufacturing, financial, and services industries to provide tailored language courses. Here she became interested in intercultural communication and adopted an approach of custom-made materials after running a series of Spanish modules for top executives working in Mexico.

María’s teaching approach focuses on intercultural communication while providing a solid grammatical grounding and vocabulary building. She celebrates the diversity of Spanish, a language spoken in over 20 countries, using authentic materials collected from around the Spanish-speaking world, a multicultural experience that students can enjoy and will help them explore the world.

Education

Education

• BA in Applied Linguistics (Translation) at Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León  2000
• MA in English Language Teaching  at The University of Nottingham 2002 (Supervisor Dr. Barbara Sinclair)
• Styles and Strategies Based Instruction. Summer Institute for Language Teachers CARLA, University of Minnesota 2002 (Dr. Andrew Cohen)
• Certificate for Overseas Teachers of English. Cambridge English Language Assessment. 1998