EC Montreal is proud to introduce you to Maria Elena Garcia! She has recently joined our team of English teachers! We are delighted to welcome her to EC! Her passion and enthusiasm was evident to us immediately!
Here is what she would like to share with all of you:
My name is Maria Elena Garcia and I am super excited about being part of the EC Montreal teaching team. I was born in Quito, Ecuador a beautiful city in the middle of the Andes mountains and I moved to Montreal this past August.
I have always been interested in languages and cultures and my first study abroad experience was when I received a full scholarship to attend a higher-education institution in the United States. I completed a double major degree in Communication Leadership and International Relations and a couple years later a Masters in Management. Immediately after college, I started working for a financial consulting firm and taught ESL classes as a volunteer in my community. I lived and worked in the USA for a total of ten and a half years.
My passion for travelling and my experience tutoring languages to foreigners inspired me to make a career change back in 2010. I traveled to Ecuador to complete a Certificate of English Teaching to Adults (CELTA) and taught general English and IELTS preparation courses at a large university there for three years.
What I love about teaching is being able to help students experience all aspects of the language and prepare them for real life situations where they can interact with confidence. Through teaching, I have seen students reach their professional and personal goals and that is priceless!
Why Montreal you might ask? Well, I had always been intrigued as to what teaching and living in a French-speaking city would be like, so I decided to immigrate to Canada. I moved to Montreal three weeks ago and I am enjoying every minute of it. I look forward to meeting people from different cultures and participating in festivals and art-related activities in this wonderful city. I speak Spanish, English, and French and I am into eating healthy, growing spiritually, art, travelling, learning languages, fashion, and of course, salsa dancing!