Before I was Profe Valentina, I was just Valentina, growing up in Manizales, Colombia. And becoming a Spanish teacher was definitely not part of the plan.
My background is actually in theater. I earned my degree in Performing Arts in Colombia, and in 2006, I moved to the United States through a cultural exchange program. Somewhere along the way, I found myself teaching Spanish to children—and I loved it.
The more time I spent in the classroom, though, the more I started questioning the way I was teaching.
My students could repeat vocabulary. They could remember lots of words. But I didn’t want them to just memorize Spanish. I wanted them to understand it and eventually be able to use it.
That curiosity led me to learn more about Comprehensible Input, and little by little, my classroom started to change.
I began using more stories, movement, visuals, games, and interaction. I focused less on how many words we could cover and more on giving my students Spanish they could actually understand.
And it just made sense to me.
I could see my students understanding more, participating more, and becoming more comfortable with Spanish. They were having fun, and I was having fun teaching them.
That’s when stories really became a big part of my classroom.
I started writing my own stories based on the language I wanted my students to acquire, and eventually I began sharing them with other teachers on Teachers Pay Teachers. For a while, I created one story at a time, but I kept thinking about how much I wanted everything to connect.
I wanted familiar characters that students would recognize from one story to another. I wanted teachers to have the activities, games, and guidance they needed to know what to do with each story. And more than anything, I wanted it to feel like a curriculum, not just a collection of individual resources.
That’s how Aventuras in Learning began. 💛
Aventuras brings together so much of what I’ve learned from years of teaching Spanish: stories, comprehensible language, movement, play, repetition, and lots of opportunities for students to interact with Spanish in meaningful ways.
And one of my favorite parts of all of this?
I’m still in the classroom.
I’m still teaching. Still trying new ideas. Still seeing what my students respond to. Still changing things that don’t work and learning all the time.
And that’s also why I continue sharing here on Profe Valentina.
I want this to be a place where I can share what is actually happening in my classroom—the routines I use, the games we play, the way I teach through stories, and the ideas that have made teaching Spanish more joyful and meaningful for me and my students.
I’m so glad you’re here. 💛