An Interview with AED - TEFL International Barcelona Teacher Profile
English teachers like to travel.
It comes with the job.
Our desire to see the world is what has brought most of us together.
But, why do you really love travelling?
How has it shaped your life?
Our TEFL International Barcelona featured teacher this month, Anna Elizabeth Davis,
knows exactly the value of travelling.
Travelling has led Anna to her passion of painting and drawing and has played a huge part in showing her where she belongs in the world.
Anna´s story really begins when she went to Chile to visit her brother after she finished university. She continued to travel for 8 months around South America and decided to call Cordoba, Argentina home for 4 years because she found the city full of warm and creative people.
When she arrived to Cordoba, she did not speak Spanish and she began drawing and painting simply in order to communicate at parties and BBQ´s. She would use the coal from the BBQ to draw on the ground or on whatever she could get her hands on simply to meet people and try to communicate. These black marks became maps and people, foods and actions, her way of telling her story and trying to understand a culture so vastly different from her own.
Art became her connection to the world and the people in it.
Art became her “daily ritual”.
Art became her life.
(Yes, Anna is cooler and will always be cooler than most of us. The truly "cool" never try, they just are.)
Obviously this was not a `normal´ thing for people to do, but the more she drew the more it was seen in her neighborhood and she was eventually encouraged to sell it. What started as sporadic charcoal floor drawings developed into a budding business. Over the last 4 years she has been commissioned to paint: paintings, T-shirt designs, wall hangings, murals in schools, hostels and even city streets.
Something as basic as wanting to communicate with the people in her community changed the direction of Anna´s life.
This story makes it easy to understand why people instantly take a liking to Anna and are drawn to her art. It also makes sense as to why she wanted to be an English teacher to support her growing business.
I am by no means an art critic, but looking at Anna´s paintings it is easy to make a connection to her personality. Anna is a dreamer and risk-taker and maybe that is why I instantly liked her, because I am too, and I think most people on this page can relate to that.
Luckily for TEFL International Barcelona and the residents of Barcelona, this passion brought her here this past winter to be closer to home (England), while still enjoying the Spanish culture in a city that runs on creativity.
Anna just wrapped-up a 4-day Creative English Workshop in Tiana and is looking forward to doing similar things in the future that will allow her to combine her love of languages with her art. She is currently teaching at an academy in Gracia and various business classes around the city.
She could not be happier about her decision to teach English simply because she gets to use her creativity for each lesson she plans.
We are all fortunate that there are teachers like Anna to learn from.
Teachers who truly care about your dreams because they are chasing their own.
Feel free to contact Anna directly about possible teaching positions, if you want to
commission her for a painting (interesting enough she was on her way to drop off a piece to a fellow English teacher when we met).
Check out her on facebook pages and blog:
