I believe students learn best when they feel safe and seen, inspired and challenged. I believe that learning is most effective when educators and students collaborate to craft highly engaging learning experiences. I believe the way each student learns and absorbs is valid and highly unique. I believe it is my role to draw out and draw upon the natural strengths and motivations of my students. My teaching practice works in tandem with the young learner's natural propensity for keen observations, perceptive insights, playfulness, honesty, truth-seeking, humility, humor and wonder.

I enjoy young people immensely; I feel most comfortable and creative when I am with them. I am their student, too, as I am enriched by their curiosities and seek to emulate their transparency. Working in partnership we ascend the mountain that is new language acquisition.

Playful Pedagogy
I believe that the single most powerful way to learn language - for students of all ages - is through open dialogue and playful pedagogy. In play we are relaxed and alert, flexible and creative, open and attentive, productive and absorptive.

Innovative Multi-Sensory Curricula
Based on years of observation and study about how language is most effectively acquired, I have built 95% of my own curricula. This pedagogical repertoire includes sixteen different and complete units of study for early childhood, four summer-long conversation courses, eight academic year curricula for early and middle elementary students, and six unique immersive academic year simulation game experiences for upper elementary and middle school. I write most of the music I sing in class. 

Primary Educational Tools
To engage children in creative and intelligent ways, and to assist them with solid and enduring language acquisition, I frequently use:
- Music; 
- Powerful and memorable imagery;
- Art and design-thinking;
- Movement, motion, and sports;
- Theater and puppets;
- Books, stories and storytelling;
- Experiential learning simulations;
- Games, open-ended building toys, and imaginative play.