Sol Abroad recognizes the importance of knowledgeable, friendly, and well-trained onsite staff. Our onsite directors and staff are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to assist you with any needs. The onsite directors will be your program leader and will be there to lead and guide you during your study abroad experience. Our programs also have assistant directors that help manage the programs, especially during excursions and cultural activities. Sol Abroad directors are usually host-country nationals with cross-cultural experience. All of our directors have experience working with groups and have international experience (travel and work) and have studied abroad themselves as students.
Erika Sosa García
Erika Sosa García comes from a millenary indigenous town in Oaxaca: Mitla. Erika learned Spanish at the same time she learned Zapoteco, her native Mexican language. All of her schooling was...
Erika Sosa García comes from a millenary indigenous town in Oaxaca: Mitla. Erika learned Spanish at the same time she learned Zapoteco, her native Mexican language. All of her schooling was in Spanish but at home she spoke Zapoteco and learned indigenous traditions and indigenous concepts about the world. Erika loves to cook traditional food. It is important to her to propagate the cultural richness of Mexico because it is a blend of ancient civilizations which have produced great artists and thinkers. She wants to offer study abroad students a gateway to meet and appreciate a very vibrant society - and the key to that gate is the Spanish language! She hopes that you develop an appreciation and respect for Mexico and its culture during your stay in Mexico with SOL.
Erika has been a Spanish language teacher since 2010. She taught English at the college level for two and a half years, and at the elementary level for two years. She has also taught Zapoteco lessons for 10 months, and she has taught Spanish to non-Mexicans for one year. She realized early on that teaching Spanish includes much more than teaching grammar rules, verbs, or sounds; it also includes history, literature, myths, music, etc. And this is true for other languages as well. This is why she takes great care in making culture an integral component of her language lessons. All of these teaching experiences have helped her develop new skills and abilities, which have made her a better person and a better teacher.
Because of her ?double background? she can understand and help students who come to Oaxaca to study abroad. In 2009 she had the opportunity to further develop these skills. She taught in an elementary school in Canada. This was a challenging and a very rewarding experience! It made her a more flexible teacher because it provided her with the opportunity to interact with students with completely different backgrounds than hers, which surely reinforced her teaching abilities. In the long run, Erika sees herself as a well respected language-teaching professional with experience teaching Spanish and Mexican culture abroad, and English and American culture in Mexican universities. Erika received a prestigious Fulbright scholarship for the next academic 2014-2015 year at an American college (we are very excited for her!). She looks forward to welcoming you with open arms to her native Oaxaca! Safe travels! Email:[email protected] Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/erika.sosagarcia University Attended:
Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (Oaxaca, Mexico) Year Graduated: 2004 Languages Spoken:
Spanish
Eva Verardo
Eva is originally from Venice, Italy. Since she was very young her dream has been to explore new and far away places. Whenever she could she would grab her backpack and leave for new adventu...
Eva is originally from Venice, Italy. Since she was very young her dream has been to explore new and far away places. Whenever she could she would grab her backpack and leave for new adventures. She spent her senior year (1992) at Millville High School in Pennsylvania as an AFS exchange student and lived with an American host family. In college, she studied Communication Science at the University of Trieste, in Italy, and spent a year abroad (1999) as an Erasmus student at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain, where she improved her Spanish language skills. During her university years, Eva spent all her holidays traveling and volunteering in different countries such as Australia, India, and East Africa (Mali, Burkina Faso). Soon after graduating from university (2001) she spent 6 months in Costa Rica working as the Volunteer Coordinator for a local Environmental NGO and was in charge of student volunteers for three projects: a sustainable farm project, a turtle conservation program and bird migration research. As a Volunteer Coordinator she helped organize the projects and arranged the homestays with local Costa Rican families. All of these amazing travel experiences put Eva in contact with important issues such as forest conservation, indigenous rights, poverty, environmental degradation, etc. and led her to study a Master?s degree at the University of Sussex in the UK on Environment Development and Policy (2003) to learn more about sustainability and natural resource management. After completing her Master?s degree, she left Europe to get more field experience in developing countries and landed in Oaxaca City (2003) where she worked as Communication Specialist for a local NGO dealing with water quality issues. More recently, as part of fulfilling her dream of exploration, she spent almost a year (2011) leading an expedition with four adventurers and discovered a new overland route from coast to coast crossing the states of Veracruz and Oaxaca (all by foot!). While living in Oaxaca she has improved her film skills through learning participatory video techniques as new way to film documentaries. This is a method that directly involves the local community in the whole filming process. She has organized participatory video workshops with young people in many indigenous villages. Through participatory video she has come in close contact with an extraordinary variety of cultures, environments, traditions, foods, and handicrafts that characterize the state of Oaxaca. She also worked as participatory video facilitator with groups of young community members in rural villages in Asia (2009, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Southern India). Another passion of Eva?s is yoga and meditation and she recently became a certified Hatha Yoga teacher (2013)! Eva loves enjoys working with young people and sharing with them all that Oaxaca has to offer. She looks forward to welcoming you to the adventure and fascination of Oaxaca! Email:[email protected] Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008295710804 University Attended:
University of Trieste (Trieste, Italy) Year Graduated: 2004 Languages Spoken:
Italian, Spanish
Soledad Zamora
Soledad Zamora, or Sol as she goes by, was born in Mexico city and has lived in Oaxaca since 1991. She is a native Spanish speaker and has a B.A. degree as Foreign Language (English) Teacher...
Soledad Zamora, or Sol as she goes by, was born in Mexico city and has lived in Oaxaca since 1991. She is a native Spanish speaker and has a B.A. degree as Foreign Language (English) Teacher from the University of Oaxaca. In 2004 she was awarded with a one-year, all expense paid scholarship to Kalamazoo College. Within her duties at Kalamazoo, she worked as a Spanish Teaching Assistant for the Romance Language Department while she was completing her studies in Sociolinguistics, Language, and Culture. Her experience working with foreign languages led her to write her thesis about the different ways students can learn a language in a native-speaking country while being immersed in real situations. After completing her studies in Kalamazoo, she moved to Augusta, Michigan to be part of the YMCA Sherman Lake Summer Camp. She worked as a counselor and international staff member giving presentations about Mexico and especially Oaxaca. In 2006 she was awarded to a month-long stay in Bremen, Germany. She and two other students from Oaxaca performed different cultural activities at Bremen University as well as promoting an exchange program between the Language Center of the University of Oaxaca and Bremen University. Through this experience, it was possible to share many things about the culture, language, and traditions of Oaxaca within an international perspective. Another amazing part of this trip was to practice the German language and develop her linguistic skills while being in contact with native speakers in daily life. As a final part of this experience, but no less important, was the combination of learning about German and English culture and language through visiting other cities of Middle and South Germany such as Göttingen, Hannover, and Leipzig, as well as London, England. She is currently working for a prestigious Contemporary Art Gallery in Oaxaca as an interpreter and director?s assistant. She also teaches English at different levels for the private High School ?Carlos Gracida? and University of Oaxaca, her alma mater. Sol loves languages and learning new things and most importantly meeting new people, it's an amazing part of life! You will really enjoy meeting Sol and her name fits the program perfectly! Email:[email protected] Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/solezamora University Attended:
Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (Oaxaca, Mexico) Year Graduated: 2004 Languages Spoken:
German, Spanish
