Carmen Garcia del Rio

Carmen is the Learning & Teaching Languages Coordinator of the School of Humanities at the University of Dundee. She has more than 20 years experience in the field of teaching Applied Spanish and has worked in Lancaster and St Andrews Universities. She has published with the Open University, Hodder Education, HarperCollins and Difusión. The creation and delivery of innovative teaching materials and courses to facilitate a greater and more successful uptake of Modern Languages is central to her career.

Her current teaching practice is based upon what she learned through experience as well as through study, and techniques she has tried, observed, refined and reflected upon.

Her approach has at its foundation the concept that it is the student who must do the learning; therefore a good teacher will facilitate this by providing a safe and challenging learning environment, a clear sequence of learning opportunities made explicit to the students, fair assessment, motivation and support.

Carmen is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the University of Dundee Representative on the UCML Scotland.

Her experience

Prior to her appointment at the University of Dundee in 2011, for 13 years she was the Senior Language Tutor of Spanish at the University of St Andrews, where she was responsible for the language provision including material and programme creation, training and support of tutors, she taught Spanish at Lancaster University, in Further Education in various institutions in Cumbria, and in two secondary schools.

Education

MA in Language Studies and a PGCE (Secondary) from Lancaster University, a PGDip in Administrative Studies from Leeds Polytechnic, a Degree in Spanish Philology and a Certificate of Aptitude to Teach from the University of Santiago de Compostela.