About David and Rachel Nance
About David
Like many people, I studied Spanish in high school. I took three years of Spanish, and aways enjoyed it. Based on my three years of high school Spanish, I skipped straight to Spanish 201 when I got to college. This was probably the first time that I ever felt behind or unprepared. I was able to keep up, and I did fine in the class, but it was a good thing that I had friends to study with.
After my freshman year of college, I left to spend two years as a missionary in Uruguay. It was this boots-on-the-ground experience that helped me to become truly fluent in Spanish.
Although I was not planning at that time to be a Spanish teacher (I was majoring in Political Science but planning to switch to Economics), my time in Uruguay gave me another invaluable experience - it allowed me to also observe firsthand the language acquisition process as many of my peers also went through it. I have often reflected on these experiences and observations in the years since, and have used them to guide my decisions and strategies as a teacher and course creator.
My first job out of college was as a distance-learning Spanish teacher. Until I saw the ad for that job, I had never pictured myself as anything but a traditional classroom teacher. Going down that path, however, has opened my eyes to possibilities that I had never considered before, and I have spent my career as anything but a traditional Spanish teacher.
About Us
We homeschool our five children. We take a "learning by doing" approach with that, believing that they can learn much more by experiencing the world than by reading about it in textbooks. For years, we dreamed of moving our family to a Spanish-speaking country, in order to give our children a unique experience. In September 2019, we finally accomplished that dream, moving to Spain, where we lived for the next nine months.
We have traveled together to many countries across Latin America and Europe, and look forward to many more such adventures in the future.
About Rachel
I have a background as an elementary school teacher, but have spent the last decade homeschooling our children. I also learned Spanish as a missionary in South America (Bolivia). I have been co-teaching online courses with David for the last several years, and really enjoy working with students from around the country.