Teaching Experience

I am grateful to the institutions mentioned below that have so far enabled me to acquire my teaching experience in diverse contexts. These different experiences have modeled and shaped my teaching behavior, which remains fresh and open to adjustments as my expertise in the field grows. The diversity of students’ backgrounds and levels of ability, as well as the content of those courses that I have taught have allowed me discover my personal skills for teaching. My experience has highlighted the need to be flexible in all those different teaching contexts in which I have taught in the United States, Spain and Britain. My education in didactics of foreign language teaching has successfully prepared me to face teaching from a pedagogical and creative approach with students of different levels and different backgrounds. Similarly, my Ph.D. in Intellectual History and Cultural Studies have also given me the unique opportunity to integrate perspectives of history and culture in content courses of both Spanish and English. In this challenging experience, it was essential to select texts and materials that were to be critically analyzed in my lectures.
Brown University, October 2012

Departmental Initiatives

Theatre Production in Spanish
I have directed a theatre production of four plays in Spanish at the University of Mississippi (Fall 2017, May 2018). Based on my initial experience of dealing with theatre in the classroom at Brown University (Spring 2013), I designed this theatre workshop in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Mississippi (2017-2018). It consisted of 10 sessions where students could work with drama at many different levels: I designed theatrical activities (body language), a literary workshop (Federico García Lorca's Bodas de Sangre), and a writing workshop (writing a script) concluding in acting rehearsals and a campus-wide final performance that took place at the Meek Auditorium in December 2017 (the University of Mississippi). The production was sponsored by the office of Diversity Affairs (Office of the Provost), the Department of Modern Languages, and the Department of Theatre Arts (the University of Mississippi). This is an example of how to integrate content materials with the so-called experiential learning methodology (Task-Based approach). It was a fun and memorable experience for all.
The students who appear in this video authorized me to exhibit its content with academic/cultural/pedagogical purposes.
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Hispanic Film Festival

​I organized the inaugural and subsequent annual Hispanic Film Festival at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2019-present), featuring independent award-winning films in Spanish and other indigenous and national languages of the Hispanic countries (Guarani, Quechua, Aymara, and/or Catalan, Galician, Euskera...). The Hispanic Film Fest sought to enrich the moviegoer experience by presenting filmmakers and UT professors as guest speakers before the screenings. The festival was made possible with the support of Pragda (Spanish Film Club), Spain Arts & Culture, and the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain. The production was thus awarded with a Pragda Grant (SFC) and counted on the sponsorship of eight departments across UT campus: Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, Cinema Studies, Department of History, Department of Political Science, Office of Diversity and Engagement, Office of Multicultural Student Life, Center for International Education, and John C. Hodges Library. ​

Courses taught

Honors "Cultural Perspectives on Modern Spain"
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

​How is contemporary Spain culturally constructed? This course offers an overview of contemporary Spanish culture throughout 20th century history and the present day from a Cultural Studies approach. The course aims to introduce students to the paradigms of cultural theory to analyze the different phenomena that have defined contemporary Spanish identity, from the Civil War to the indignados/15M protests and other more recent social, economic, and political structures that inform democratic Spain today. Some of the themes that will be treated include Spain’s organization in autonomous regions and the rise of nationalisms (Catalonia and Basque Country); Madrid’s Movida —the punk / rock movement that launched the capital into the vibrant city it is today; artistic demonstrations of Barcelona’s Modernisme —Picasso, Miró and Gaudí—; film approaches to contemporary Spanish culture —from Pedro Almodóvar to popular tv series such as La casa de papel (Money Heist)—, and popular manifestations of the Spanish way of life such as fashion, bullfighting and soccer. All these features of life, history and politics will be analyzed all throughout the course. ​

Language courses

Brown University (RI)

Department of Hispanic Studies (2012-2013)

  • Advanced- Proficient Spanish (Hisp 500).
​​This fast-paced course for advanced proficient learners offers an insight into the Hispanic world through the study of a wide variety of topics and texts. It provides an intensive reinforcement of the previously acquired advanced grammar structures, and particular attention is paid to the vocabulary related to cultural themes. There is also constant opportunity for the students to develop their language skills: oral production is constantly required in class in order to participate in debates, express opinions, define concepts, etc. Similarly, the writing of essays, the practice of the receptive oral abilities (with recordings, and films), together with a considerable load of readings complete this thorough and demanding course that covers wide variety of linguistic requirements.
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  • ​Advanced- Proficient Spanish (Hisp 600). 
This course aims to take students towards proficiency in Spanish. This course offers continued advanced level work in speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, with focused review of challenging aspects of Spanish grammar. Course materials include films, music, and a variety of written texts (articles, stories, a novella etc.) chosen to promote class discussion and in-depth analysis. There will be individual and group activities, including in-class presentations and performance projects. Readings and films promote advanced linguistic and cultural analysis centered on topics including relationships, identity and society, globalization, and relations between the U.S. and the Hispanic world.

The University of Mississippi, Oxford (2015-2018)

Department of Modern Languages

  • Elementary Spanish 121. 
This course allows students to manage a wide variety of vocabulary to be able to introduce themselves, express likes and dislikes, exchange information, give directions, plan activities, describe their daily routine, express comparisons of equality and inequality, express emotional changes among other basic tasks in the target language. Students are eventually able to work with basic subject- verb structures (present tense, report past events and use the preterit and imperfect) and achieve a basic level of accuracy in the target language.

  • Intensive Elementary Spanish 111.
​This course is designed to introduce students to the language and culture of the Spanish-speaking world. Students should be able to learn to communicate effectively in Spanish and develop knowledge and an appreciation for Hispanic cultures. In this course students will begin to work towards developing their Spanish communicative skills through extensive practice in reading, writing, speaking and listening. By the end of this class students should be able to complete basic communicative tasks in Spanish using the communication strategies, grammar structures and vocabulary acquired during the semester, and understand and be able to talk about the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. ​
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  • Intermediate Spanish 201.
Students are eventually able to request shopping-related information and make travel arrangements, manage a wide range of vocabulary in Spanish about health, professions, job search, Hispanic Culture. Students are able to differentiate between preterit and imperfect, and use the subjunctive.

  • Intermediate Spanish 202. 
This course allows students to communicatively interact in Spanish. Students are eventually able to express their ideas both in oral and written communication, as well as gain knowledge of Latin American and Hispanic cultures. Students are able to discuss topics about technology, the environment, means of communication, entertainment and politics.

  • Intensive Intermediate Spanish 211.​
Students are expected to communicate effectively in Spanish and develop knowledge and an appreciation for Hispanic cultures. In this course students will begin to work towards developing their Spanish communicative skills through extensive practice in reading, writing, speaking and listening. By the end of this class students should be able to complete intermediate communicative tasks in Spanish using the communication strategies, grammar structures and vocabulary acquired during the semester, and understand and be able to talk about the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. ​ 
  • Upper-intermediate Spanish 303. Conversation and Composition I. 
This course is an upper-intermediate Spanish course focused on developing students' linguistic competences of writing and speaking, as well as their knowledge on the Hispanic literature and culture. This course integrates a full semester monographic workshop on the Spanish author Federico García Lorca to promote students' written and oral production. Students are expected to read Lorca's play Bodas de Sangre, analyse the work and comment on its significations. Students also have to write their own original play and do an end-of-semester performance project. This course offers the students the opportunity to write, read and speak more fluently in Spanish. They revise already acquired grammatical structures and improve their communicative skills. Lectures on Lorca's literary work (plays, poetry and prose) are used to achieve the language goals of this course. 

  • Upper-intermediate Spanish 304. Conversation and Composition II. ​
This is an upper-intermediate Spanish course that allows students develop more advanced writing and conversational skills through debates and essays on Latin American contemporary culture, history and politics. The course focuses on topics such as ethnographic data of Spanish speakers in the US, indigenous movements in Latin America,  the political map of Central and South America, women in politics, crime rates, environmentalism, and literary manifestations (poetry and short stories by Latin American authors). Students should be able to know the Hispanic world through readings, videos and cultural activities. We continue revising advanced grammar.
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The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2018-present)

Honors Program


1) UHNO Cultural Perspectives on Modern Spain.

​How is contemporary Spain culturally constructed? This course offers an overview of contemporary Spanish culture throughout 20th century history and the present day from a Cultural Studies approach. The course aims to introduce students to the paradigms of cultural theory to analyze the different phenomena that have defined contemporary Spanish identity, from the Civil War to the indignados/15M protests and other more recent social, economic, and political structures that inform democratic Spain today. Some of the themes that will be treated include Spain’s organization in autonomous regions and the rise of nationalisms (Catalonia and Basque Country); Madrid’s Movida —the punk / rock movement that launched the capital into the vibrant city it is today; artistic demonstrations of Barcelona’s Modernisme —Picasso, Miró and Gaudí—; film approaches to contemporary Spanish culture —from Pedro Almodóvar to popular tv series such as La casa de papel (Money Heist)—, and popular manifestations of the Spanish way of life such as fashion, bullfighting and soccer. All these features of life, history and politics will be analyzed all throughout the course.

Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures

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  • Elementary Spanish I (111)​
Spanish 111 is a 3 credit-hour course. This course is recommended for true beginners or those with very little Spanish experience. Spanish 111 is a “flipped course”, which means that the majority of the grammar explanations will happen at home through the online e-textbook materials. The program follows a communicative approach to instruction. Students will use gestures, pictures, cognates, context, etc., to make themselves comprehensible. Additionally, in class students will be expected to use Spanish to communicate with their fellow classmates to complete a variety of tasks and activities.

  • Elementary Spanish II (112)
​Spanish 112 is a traditional, 3 credit-hour course. The program follows a communicative approach to instruction. Spanish 112 is a “flipped course”, which means that the majority of the grammar explanations happen at home through the online textbook materials and instructors are required to speak almost entirely in Spanish from the first day of class. Students will use gestures, pictures, cognates, context, etc., to make themselves comprehensible. Additionally, in class students will be expected to use Spanish to communicate with their fellow classmates to complete a variety of tasks and activities. 

Online courses

1) Online Elementary Spanish I (Span 111)

​This online class will have a synchronous component to deliver the course content through Zoom. This tool allows “real time” virtual meeting between the students and their instructor. The students will work/participate in communicative language activities, vocabulary, grammar, etc. for 4 1⁄2 hours a week (MWF 9:00 AM- 10:30 A.M.) As this online class is intended to be a “flipped course”, the instructor will be more or less a “moderator” to emphasize interdependent participation among the students to help them develop their oral skills.

Designed Course Syllabi

1) Introduction to European Intellectual History (prospective graduate course)​

Is twenty-first century Western culture an anti-intellectual society? Where have the old intellectuals gone? This course explores the Social History of Intellectuals from the late nineteenth century to present in Europe. The debate on the role of public intellectuals ­—who can be either opposed to or allied with power— has endured throughout the twentieth century and is now experiencing a particular resurgence in the early twenty-first century. Intellectuals have embroiled themselves in the political and historical events of their time, often serving as dissenting voices reacting in the name of universal truth and justice. The French model of intellectuel stems from the ideal of the “great writer” who, embodied in the figure of Émile Zola after writing his famous J’accuse letter of protest in 1898, was established as the epitome of the oppositional intellectual. The French prototype of subversive committed thinker —together with other models such as the Russian intelligentsia— counteract and sometimes overshadow other national contexts in which intellectuals are not positively regarded and are often disregarded recognition. The British intellectual, for instance, has often been accused of not representing an oppositional force and of being instead more closely allied with power. The American intellectual, for his/her part, renders a model of prejudiced and chronic anti-intellectualism grounded on its traditional rejection of European elitism. 

2) Anglo-American Relations: The Special Relationship US/UK (prospective 300 level course)

This course offers a historical overview of the “Special Relationship” —as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill named it— between the US and Britain from the end of the Second World War to the present. The aim of this course is to familiarize students with the political and cultural alliance between these two countries, whose relations have focused on three fronts: military cooperation, financial agreements, and cultural ties stemming from shared history, values, and language. The shift in hegemony from Britain to the US, and the constant transit in popular culture back and forth across the Atlantic, have made this bond unique, and uniquely significant, among the international relations of both states. Through the viewing of films and the reading of a number of texts (including literature, history books, and popular culture products such as music) this course aims to move from the post-Second World War in both US and Britain, to the present, covering the most significant historical and cultural events of the period: the Cold War, the so-called “British Invasion” of rock bands in the US in the sixties, the parallel rise of neoliberalism under the governments of Reagan and Thatcher, and its consolidation under the governments of Clinton and Blair. Finally, this course offers a hint to the most recent Obama-Cameron relations in the context of the recent referendum supporting “Brexit".

​3) Theatre through Federico García Lorca: Literary and Cultural Representations of Spain​​

This is a hybrid language, literature and culture course that focuses on developing upper intermediate students’ linguistic competencies in reading, writing and speaking, as well as fostering their knowledge of Federico García Lorca’s theatre to ultimately understand the deep cultural structures of Spain as represented in the author's literature. An analysis of the cultural symbols of Spain in general, and the author’s intimate connection with the city of Granada in particular take place through discussions on Lorca’s theatrical works, complemented in this course with satellite readings of some selected poems and essayistic texts in which the author develops the concepts of beauty, love, passion, marriage, death, women, and politics. This course also explores Lorca’s emotional responses to art, thus connecting literature to other artistic stage expressions such as Flamenco dance and music as a representation of what he called Duende, the mysterious and spiritual power of the artistic soul. This course integrates a practical theatre workshop that aims to promote students’ written and oral production in the Spanish language through the writing of an original play script and an end-of-semester theatrical performance.

​4) Cultural Perspectives on Modern Spain.

How is contemporary Spain culturally constructed? This course offers an overview of contemporary Spanish culture throughout 20th century history and the present day from a Cultural Studies approach. The course aims to introduce students to the paradigms of cultural theory to analyze the different phenomena that have defined contemporary Spanish identity, from the Civil War to the indignados/15M protests and other more recent social, economic, and political structures that inform democratic Spain today. Some of the themes that will be treated include Spain’s organization in autonomous regions and the rise of nationalisms (Catalonia and Basque Country); Madrid’s Movida —the punk / rock movement that launched the capital into the vibrant city it is today; artistic demonstrations of Barcelona’s Modernisme —Picasso, Miró and Gaudí—; film approaches to contemporary Spanish culture —from Pedro Almodóvar to popular tv series such as La casa de papel (Money Heist)—, and popular manifestations of the Spanish way of life such as fashion, bullfighting and soccer. All these features of life, history and politics will be analyzed all throughout the course. 

English Literature

University of Santiago de Compostela 2010-2012

  • ​English Literature II (Romantic and Victorian Period, 19th century England). 

This lecture-style course entails an introduction to nineteenth century English Literature and Society, from both a historical and a literary perspective. It provides a historical analysis of Great Britain of both the Romantic period and the later Victorian era, associating the historical background to the cultural and literary production. This course aims to analyse Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (1854) as a way to approach the history of the period.
  • Other Literatures in English (Postcolonial Irish Short Story). 

This course was designed to explore the postcolonial meanings of texts written in English, and more concretely, texts and authors of previous British colonies. An introduction to 19th and 20th-century Irish history contextualised a subsequent selection of Irish short stories by authors such as Frank O’Connor, Liam O’Flaherty, and Daniel Corkery among others, all of which were analysed from a postcolonial perspective using critical readings from Frantz Fanon and Edward Said.
  • Monographic Course of Literature II (Gothic Literature, 19th and 20th century English Literature). 

This course aims to be an introductory module on Gothic Literature in the context of postcolonial Irish short story in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gothic stories written by authors such as Elizabeth Bowen, May Sinclair, and Sheridan Le Fanu, among others, are analysed in order to explore ghost stories and the literature of the vampire as samples of postcolonial writings. Additional readings on the Gothic genre and critical theory are also required, such as texts by David Punter, Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva.

K-12, Perth (Scotland), 2007-2008

Perth Academy and St. Columba’s High School, Perth (Scotland, UK)

•   Lower intermediate, Spanish as a Foreign Language
•   Upper intermediate, Spanish as a Foreign Language
     September 2007 - May 2008

These courses, taught at Secondary Education in the Scottish public education system, were designed with the aim of being an intensive practice of the oral communicative skills – mainly speaking and listening – as the only opportunity students had to be in contact with native speakers and practice the language. Communicative activities were planned in order to elicit the students’ oral production, motivating them, equally, with culture content activities that functioned as prompts to use the language.  
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