Professor Spotlight: The Talented Ms. Torres

She acts. She writes. And she teaches. Javiera Torres juggles it all gracefully, and she has Taekwondo kicks to prove it.

Torres, a newly appointed faculty member at International American University (IAU), will be teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) “Business English” course next spring semester at the Los Angeles location. Courses will begin on Jan. 3, 2011.

“If I could be anything I want,” Torres said, “I would be a sword welding ninja in an intergalactic battle.” Torres has a love for fantasy, which can be seen in her collection of Anime and classic video games. She also has a passion for creative writing and theatre acting – in her spare time she works at her community theatre. It wasn’t until a tutor job with her father’s co-worker when she found a new passion: teaching.

Born in Concepcion, Chile, Torres moved to the United States at the age of five. Since then, she was raised by the American culture, but didn’t forget her native heritage. Her Chilean accent in Spanish is still intact, Torres proudly noted.

Torres received a bachelor’s degree with an emphasis in English at California State University of Northridge. Torres said she wanted to have an office job and do creative work, such as writing and acting, on the side. She started working in an office job and to make extra funds, tutored her father’s co-worker in finessing the English language.

“I found new ways of helping her Spanish accent easier to understand for native English speakers,” Torres said. “As she started to make progress, I realized that it made me feel very happy because I was actually helping her advance her career. I had a sense of accomplishment that I had not had while working in an office. I felt that I was making a significant difference in someone’s life.”

It was then when Torres decided to obtain her master’s degree in Linguistics/Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and was accepted into the University of California, Los Angeles TESL program. Throughout the years, Torres worked at the Northridge Institute of Interpretation and the Court Interpreting Program as well as a teacher’s assistant at California State University of Los Angeles. She also had volunteered as an English reading tutor for the Guadalupe Center in Canoga Park.

Within the past year, Torres was hired by IAU as an ESL professor. Torres said she hopes to grow with IAU and help out with curriculum planning. “I want to learn from colleagues in the teaching field and create a fun and creative environment for students,” Torres said. “I learned that although it is important to have a planned lesson, it is also important to be flexible enough to adapt to the students and let them guide parts of the lesson from time to time. I also learned that guiding students through the discovery of the way a language works can be more effective than telling them.”

If anything, Torres can just use her Taekwondo kicks in her class.