Behind every great success story, there is usually a great team, and our team is no exception. In an increasingly competitive world, success is all-important, and to achieve this, you need to use all the tools you can. We, at Spanish Express, are here to ensure that your goals are achieved and your needs are fulfilled.

Our strength lies in the merits of each one of our team members, who are carefully selected, according to their area of expertise and their ability to help you reach your targets. Working closely with one another and with our clients, we are committed to helping you achieve the success you deserve. For this reason, we insist that each team member meets, where appropriate, these minimum requirements:

• Native of the language in question
• A completed DBS check
• Hold a degree in teaching or translating
• Knowledge of marketing, web design, and audiovisual content
• Minimum 5 years experience
• Commitment
• Flexibility
• Reliability
• Passion

Most of our teachers are also examiners for Edexcel , AQA, DELE and SIELE. Moreover, most of our translators are members of the Chartered Institute of linguists and the Institute of Translation and interpreting.

TEACHING TEAM

Pilar Martínez – Spanish Teacher

Pilar was born in Alicante and has a degree in Pedagogy from the University of Valencia and a Master’s in Speech Therapy from the University of Barcelona. Pilar has excellent experience in teaching and working in education. She worked as director and teacher in Leonardo da Vinci Academy in Valencia for twelve years, where she taught Spanish Language and Literature. She has obtained a Certificate as Teacher Specialist Subject Training for Spanish from Comberton Village College in Cambridge. Pilar has more than fifteen years of experience in education and she has been working as Spanish teacher in England since 2016. She teaches one-to-one and groups of GCSE and A Level.

Pilar is in charge of the immersion programme in the region of Valencia and she is our hostess in Valencia. She loves showing places of interest during the trips, to the point of exhausting the students, which means that she always takes people on more excursions than there are scheduled. Pilar lives in England and she has been with us since 2016.

Laura Rodríguez – Spanish Teacher, Teacher Trainer & Proofreader

Laura is a qualified and experienced linguist, speaking five different languages, and is a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan. She has studied Literature and Hispanic Philology at the University of Barcelona. Laura has years of experience in teaching, having worked in education since 2006. She has also been a teacher trainer for Calamo & Cran in Barcelona. Alongside this, Laura has experience in translation and she is the coordinator of Spanish Courses in London for Spanish Express.

Laura is also very much involved in creating and reviewing teaching materials, and especially in editing them, as she is a proofreader. She is a true perfectionist and loves to keep everything organized. She helps us a lot in deciding what learning material is needed. Laura lives in England and she has been with us since 2006.

Gema Sánchez Benítez – Spanish Teacher

Gema lives between England and Spain, so she can enjoy the best of both worlds. She has been involved in teaching Spanish for many years. She has worked as a Spanish lecturer in China and India, but over the last six years, she has focused on teaching online, by video conference for Spanish Express and other online platforms. Gema is also very much involved in creating Spanish teaching materials, which involves identifying the vocabulary, expressions, and grammatical structures that arise in the lessons, so that they can be more useful to students. Some expressions are used more often than others are and in Spanish Express, we want to focus on Spanish as it is really spoken by Spanish speakers, not on the contrived language featured in textbooks.

Gema is the coordinator of the immersion programme in the region of Andalusia and she is our hostess in Malaga. She has been with us since 2005.

TRANSLATING TEAM

Rocío Monserrat Perotti – Translator & Interpreter

Rocío is Argentinian and she is a certified English-into-Spanish translator and interpreter. She graduated from the well- known School of Languages (National University of Cordoba), Argentina, in 2017, and has worked as a freelance translator for national and international companies for over three years now. Following her academic studies, she did a postgraduate course on simultaneous interpretation in 2018 before moving to England in 2019. She has experience in the translation and correction of legal documents and marketing materials. She has also worked as an English teacher in her home country, providing lessons for secondary school children and adults at private institutes, IT and Insurance companies. She currently works as a freelance translator for Spanish Express. She speaks Spanish, English and a bit of Portuguese and apart from being a linguist, she is an LTA Tennis Coach.

Rocío is very perfectionist and has an eye for detail. She is in charge of editing and translating all the material that appears on the Spanish Express website as well as our promotional brochures. She was the last one to join the team in 2020.

Sara Hyson – Translator & Interpreter

Sara is a Spanish-English translator and interpreter. She is passionate about language learning, has a very good ear and loves imitating accents from different parts of the Spanish-speaking world.  Her main line of work over the last 30 years has been in interpreting and translating. She has interpreted in some very challenging situations: in law enforcement settings such as for people with severe mental health issues, victims of abuse, drug trafficking, burglaries and many more; in a variety of hospital departments, including interpreting for a woman in labour, and a whole host of other scenarios and this wealth of experience means she has understanding and empathy for people from all walks of life. Translation work has also been mainly in the law enforcement agencies and the health sector (clinical trials, medical reports) as well as for songwriters and entertainment guides. She speaks Spanish fluently as she has lived in Seville for 15 years where the people are very outgoing and vivacious.

Sara is dedicated to agreeing with clients what they need in terms of the type of translation, and she deals with all the details, especially at the project management level. She has been working with us since 2005.

Communications and Public Relations

Marcela Castellanos Steffens

Marcela studied Social Communication and Public Relations and has worked mainly with Content Management and in Audiovisual Production.

She has more than 15 years of progressive experience in the field of communications, in the design and implementation of communication plans, marketing and public relations, planification and production of institutional and academic events, brand launches and activations. She has worked in the field of project management of the publishing business and content strategies. She has inclination towards teamwork and possess excellent interpersonal relations, is open-minded, committed and proactive. She is also inclined and inspired by social causes.

Audiovisuals and Multimedia

Jara Duro Linares – Audiovisual technician and multimedia designer (www.jaraduro.com)

Jara is a freelance audiovisual technician and multimedia designer. She is a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan and has a B1 level of English. She has a University degree in Audiovisual Media (2015) from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and a Postgraduate Degree in Digital Editions from BAU (Barcelona School of Design). She has also knowledge in website analytics and digital marketing.

She has worked in the Department of Translation and Interpretation of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) as a Research Support Technician. In this field, her tasks consisted of directing, filming and editing the explanatory videos of the different projects/experiments of the Transmedia Catalunya group, but also creating subtitles in various languages and including audio description to make them fully accessible. She also supported the research group working as a photographer, organising conferences and supporting with her work all the future PhDs of the group.

She has worked as a graphic designer in the documentary series “Hidden Biodiversity” (for the educational market in the United States), has prepared the ebook “Tiny Worlds” and the interactive digital publication “Awakening, a Closer Look to the Beginning of Life” and has worked as a photographer, editor and/or webmaster for some companies, including the BKH-AE, Amphos21 and Guspirus. She is currently managing the communication area of the Science-into- Images project (scienceintoimages.com).

Modern Foreign Languages – French

Olivier Tarot – French Coordinator

Olivier is a French native speaker and a fully qualified French teacher with 18 years’ teaching experience in the UK. He completed a joint PGCE/ Maîtrise FLE (French as a Foreign Language) programme and as a result, he is qualified to teach languages in the UK both to pupils and to adults. He has taught languages for 8 years in both secondary and preparatory schools, including 6 years working as Head of French. He has been working in Sixth Form Colleges teaching GCSE and A Level for 10 years. He is also teaching general, corporate and specialised French to both schoolchildren and adults at the Institut where he is a certified examiner for the DELF/DALF examination.  He enjoys working in London with students of different backgrounds, ages and abilities. He has also 10 years’ experience as an online tutor on various platforms such as Teams, Zoom, Moodle or Blackboard.

Olivier is the French Coordinator in Spanish Express and he is in charge of the French Corporate Programme for French companies with offices in Spain, UK, France, USA, Canada and other French-speaking countries. He has been with us since 2010.