My method

What teaching method does Vladimir Alejandro Urtecho use?

My method has a rather untechnical name: speaking for real from day one. It is based on the communicative approach — the one backed by research on language acquisition — but adapted to what I, Vladimir Alejandro Urtecho Ortiz, experienced first-hand as a Spanish speaker learning English as an adult, between Managua and Málaga.

Grammar matters, of course. But you learn it by using it in real conversations, not by filling in lists of exercises you forget the next day. Every new structure appears inside a situation you care about, gets practised out loud, and comes back in the following weeks until it flows on its own. That's how memory works: through use and spaced repetition, not through cramming.

And there's a third ingredient almost no method mentions: the student's emotional state. A relaxed, motivated adult learns twice as much as a tense one. That's why the first job of every class is making you feel comfortable; everything else comes after.

The real enemy: language anxiety

Do you "know" English on paper but freeze when you have to speak? It has a name: language anxiety, and it's the number one obstacle for Spanish-speaking adults. It's not a lack of level: it's the fear of sounding ridiculous, of the sentence coming out "wrong", of disappointing someone. That fear sets off an alarm in the brain that literally blocks access to the vocabulary you do have.

My method attacks it head-on, because I suffered it myself. First, we normalise mistakes: in my classes an error is never penalised — it's celebrated as raw material. In fact, I note down your mistakes more lovingly than your successes, because they're the map of your next breakthrough. Second, you start speaking in an environment with no audience and no judgement, on topics you know well. Third, we raise the difficulty so gradually that the panic zone never gets switched on.

The result repeats itself student after student: somewhere between week 4 and week 8, one day you catch yourself answering in English without having mentally "prepared" the sentence first. That day, anxiety loses the battle. And from then on, everything speeds up.

If you recognise yourself in this block, know two things: you're not a lost cause — it's the most common student profile I receive — and it isn't cured by "just pushing through", but with an environment designed to switch it off. That's exactly what you'll find in my classes.

The advantage of a teacher who learned like you

There's a myth that a native teacher is always the best option. My experience — and that of thousands of learners around the world — says otherwise: for a Spanish-speaking adult, a bilingual teacher who learned English as a second language has enormous advantages, especially at beginner and intermediate levels.

Think about it: a native speaker never had to learn the difference between "make" and "do" — it came pre-installed. I did. I remember exactly what confused me, which trick solved it and in what order things are best learned. I can explain a grammatical nuance to you in Spanish in two minutes that would take twenty in English, and I can anticipate your mistakes before you make them — because they were mine.

And I'm living proof that it can be done: nobody handed me my English. I built it through years of work between Managua and Málaga, and that gives me something no certificate teaches — real empathy with the person in front of me. When you get stuck, I don't get impatient: I recognise myself.

Free resources for my students

Publishers' generic materials are written for "the average student of the world" — who doesn't exist. Mine are written for one specific person: the Spanish-speaking adult learning English. All my students receive them at no extra cost:

• Guide to the 50 most common Spanish-to-English mistakes, with the explanation of why we make them
• Vocabulary lists by situation (work, travel, health, restaurants...), always in complete sentences
• Short audio clips recorded by me, for training your ear and practising shadowing every day
• Professional English email templates, ready to adapt and send
• A cheat sheet of connectors and set phrases that raise your mark in any oral exam

I keep updating them with what I see in class: if three students trip over the same thing in a month, that stumble ends up as material for everyone. The method learns too.

I want to start