Reilly Bruns

I am a graduate of Calvin College and Liberty University online. I live in a rural area and went to the West Michigan Aviation Academy, where I showed teachers my tutoring skills. I tutored foreign exchange students from Africa at WMAA in how to sharpen their English skills, including in vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax. Additionally, I tutored a few students in Spanish, as I had already grasped the language at a very young age. At Calvin, I believed teaching initially was not for me, so I switched to studying law (more specifically Paralegal Studies) in the fall of 2019 after having graduated in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. A lot has changed regarding the teacher certification test, and the original format and basic skills testing are part of the reason why I did not feel I was fit to be a teacher, but since the standards have since changed to test you on your specific subject area, I feel I am ready. Working with Edustaff has helped me to sharpen my teaching and classroom management skills and understand how to lesson plan, based off of the lesson plans that the teachers give me as a sub. It has been an enjoyable experience and has helped me immensely in gaining essential soft skills for when I officially become a teacher. My hope for the future is to become a language teacher, starting off with Spanish first.

Listening to foreign music, even if it is not in Spanish, has helped me to quickly identify language patterns so that if I ever decide to teach more than one language in the future and get certified in more than one language, foreign music will be a valuable tool for me to pick up on language patterns in a language that I may not yet understand.