Cristina still feels the same excitement to be part of the Sequoyah community as she did when she first arrived! She began her professional journey with a double BA in Hispanic Literature and Linguistics and since then has completed a Master’s in Applied Linguistics of Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language (Universidad de Jaén, Spain, 2014) with a focus in communicative-based curriculum design and a Master’s program in the Stylistic and Grammatical Analysis of Spanish with a focus in the neurolinguistic of language acquisition (UNED, Spain, 2019). Now she currently is working on a doctorate in the Lexical Geodiversity of Teaching Spanish as a Second Language in the US which includes her work publishing the first qualitative study about the diversity of geolectal varieties of Spanish taught in Los Angeles.
Over the years, Cristina has worked as a Curriculum Director, Coordinator and Teacher of Spanish as a Second Language for a variety of public and private schools, universities and language academies in Spain, Nicaragua, Mexico, and currently the United States.
Since moving to Los Angeles, Cristina not only works with students, but also gives teacher training workshops to help promote the transition from traditional foreign language programs to an interactive, integrated, and culturally aware approach to teaching Spanish that responds to this generation of children´s communicative needs. While Cristina has authored types of programs and resources for a variety of language programs in Spain and here, her most recent curricular projects have focused heavily on developing linguistic competency through cultural celebration. She strongly believes that a language cannot be acquired if it is isolated from the traditions and cultural practices of the many Hispanic communities that speak it and loves being able to bring the Hispanic world to Sequoyah!
