All about me

‘Ad astra per aspera.’

To the stars through struggle (Latin saying)

San Diego, a beautiful city just a stones throw from my quiet town.

Bienvenidos! Hello and welcome to my blog/ portfolio!

My name is Ramin Hafezi I’m 28 years old and from California. I was born in LA but grew up in a small city in the San Diego area. In southern California all of the place names are in Spanish, so the name of my home town Escondido ‘hidden’ is quite appropriate.

My family background is a unique mix: I’m Iranian on my father’s side & Mexican on my mother’s side, so my love of the Spanish language is nothing new. Growing up I heard a mix of both Persian (Farsi) and Spanish in the home, but sadly, I was only ever taught English. As I grew older, I became determined to learn the languages of both sides of my heritage; so that quest eventually led me to Madrid.

Escondido California my ‘sleepy’ home town

I double-majored in Humanities and the Spanish language as an undergrad, and studied abroad in Madrid in 2012. I became enamored with the city and its culture, and that’s how I found out about the auxiliar program; that’s also when I got bit by the ‘teaching bug’.

I love school and I love learning, but ironically I didn’t know until after graduating that I had a medical disorder! I was diagnosed with ADHD around my final year of university; which might explain why it took me so ling to finish school. But I wasn’t perturbed! Struggle after all is how we all grow as people. After getting my degree in Humanities in 2016, I desperately wanted to be on the other side of the classroom! I wanted to share what I’d learned with the world; so I’ve been working nonstop until I could bring myself to Madrid!

CSU Chico my alma mater

I don’t know how long I’ll be here in Madrid, but something inside me, call it intuition, is telling me that this is just the first step on a much bigger journey. I hope to someday teach all over the world and use all the experience and knowledge I’ve gathered to help my students (both kids and adults) improve their lives.

My motto: Never give up never stop! If you know you want something, peruse it with all you’ve got!

NOTE!! I am an audio-visual learner I need to see and hear something in order to understand and learn about it. So for this website I will use a lot of educational youtube videos and links. I do not own ANY of these materials no copyright infringement is intended. The credit goes to the original creators respectively. All works and projects are shared for educational purposes only.


Last minute things.

I forgot that for Halloween I designed this really cool poster for the Halloween Party/Costume contest. I’d never designed a poster before so I was proud of it & I’d like to share it here.

When I was asked to make this I don’t think just how difficult a task the teacher who assigned this to me would be. I’d never designed a poster before so first I had to find a free Halloween template to download. Then I had to select a painting software that was free and would be easy to use. I eventually settled on paint.net & I suggest everyone use it. Its very handy.

https://www.getpaint.net/

Christmas and other Winter Holidays.

Christmas was another fun highlight of my year as a language assistant. I basically introduced these Spaniard kids to Christmas traditions around the world. They’re all pretty familiar with American Xmas traditions, but almost none of them had ever heard of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa so I show them a few videos as well as discussed the historical roots of Christmas. Then I asked each student to tell me about how their family celebrates the holidays. Once again I have several classes with different age groups and not everyone’s English skills are the same so I pick several videos and judge weather or not its too complicated for that particular class. *I do not own any of these materials no copyright infringement is intended.

Philosophy class

Usually for this class I facilitate class discussions and political/philosophical debates. Occasionally when called for by the teacher, I’ll bring in a video about some branch of moral/ethical philosophy. Here’s an example of what I might bring to a class. I studied a great deal of philosophy in university so there are times where i have to restrain myself and let the kids pontificate on their own; otherwise I’ll end up hogging the class and turning the exercise into a lecture.

For my final project I plan on having a lecture/debate on the philosophical foundations of modern nation-states. For example what is liberalism?& how is it the foundation for most modern republics? ect..

More on that to come later.

Art class

Art class is a time for students to relax and stretch their creative muscles. Its so sad that its not emphasized in the education system in my home state of California. I’m glad these kids have the opportunity to learn this skill that may inspire them later in life. What continually impresses me about the art class in my school here in Pozuelo is how technical it is. These kids are learning technical drawing as well as geometry mathematical theorems and how those all relate to drawing. So my job in the class is to help kids practice their English skills & help them finish their projects. Here are some their art projects over the past year.

Resources for LAs’

Being a language assistant is a profoundly rewarding job, buy isn’t that easy. This job requires a high degree of flexibility & creativity, which can be challenging especially when trying to assist student’s in learning English; a task that is both challenging and if done incorrectly can be terribly boring to the students! That’s why when I’m preparing for conversation practice I always have several handy activities to make English fun! These websites have materials that are invaluable to the language assistant. Hopefully fellow language assistants can use them to spice up their classes.

https://en.islcollective.com/

https://www.eslkidstuff.com/

https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/learning-english/exam-preparation/