My Story
Gail Queen
My fascination with languages began while traveling with an international performing group called Up With People. In my cast were young adults from all over the world, many of whom spoke a few different languages. Their fluidity of moving back and forth between these languages captivated me. When my cast traveled to Mexico, I fell in love with the Mexican people, their culture and language. At this point, I decided that when I returned to college, I wanted to learn Spanish. Soon thereafter, I changed my major and graduated with a degree in Elementary Education/Bilingual Education. Part of my beginning journey of learning Spanish was an 8 week immersion school in Morelia, Mexico, where I lived with a Mexican family, took classes every day and taught English in a prison once a week.
I started my career in teaching at a bilingual school in Ft. Lupton, Colorado taught for Aurora Public Schools. I left the formal classroom a couple of years later in order to start a family. Teaching Spanish was on the back burner until a friend of mine asked if I would teach Spanish to a group of nurses at St. Anthony Hospital. That was 2002, and since then I have been teaching Spanish to healthcare professionals for many of the Centura Health Hospitals in the Metro Denver area including St. Anthony, Avista, Littleton, Porter Adventist, St. Anthony North Health Campus and Parker Hospital. While teaching at St. Anthony, I began a second job there as an on-call doula for Spanish speaking women. That was a two-year stint that increased my vocabulary of labor and delivery phrases!
In addition to teaching healthcare professionals, I have a few small classes of adults who are learning Spanish in order to keep their brains fresh and to speak Spanish while traveling. I also tutor one-on-one (or one-on-two) for those who want to work at their own pace with their own schedule.
Learning a second language as an adult is actually a lot of fun! We do many things in class to make the language ‘stick’ which includes songs, rhymes, telenovelas, games, humor and lots of mnemonic devices. Research shows that as we get older, learning a language or an instrument is one of the best things we can do for our brains.
What I love most about teaching Spanish is simply connecting with other adults who have decided to embark on the adventure of learning another language later in life. What I also love about these students is that they are taking the class because they want to, which means they are more invested in their success. Join a class and habla español with us!