About the Instructors

Maya Ilieva Campbell Erasmus Academic Scholarship Student of the University of Granada, Spain, Bachelor of Pedagogy of the Teaching of Bulgarian and English as a Foreign

Language, and Master of Educational Management.

I am looking forward to become part of your child’s "Spanish Language Learning Journey" and I am excited about every single step of it.  The years I studied and lived in Spain as a student marked my life in a way so that now I love the Spanish people, culture and language as much as I love my own.  I am from Bulgaria, where I taught Spanish and English to adults and children at a Private Language Institute for 6 years. I have also done a great deal of translation and interpretation work, most of it for the Educational Department of the Spanish Embassy in Sofia. In my country knowing languages is a must, especially now that Bulgaria is the newest member of the European Union.  I have always loved my job, and after I moved to Nashville in 2007 to get married, my biggest hope was to continue to teach Spanish. I am happy now to be an instructor at TFLI and to confirm what I had heard about the students and the teachers – they are the best! 

About the Materials

The BBC MUZZY multimedia program uses the Natural Method and immersion approach in a unique multi-sensory environment that engages and motivates through the power of Story. National Language Standards are followed within the context of an ongoing, suspenseful, hysterical, soap opera story line that is spiraled in a multi-layered design. It motivates children to participate, which is the only way to master a foreign language – by speaking, repeatedly. MUZZY emphasizes the use of functional language.  It is best learned and enjoyed in role plays – where children get to sing, act out scenes and dialog with props, and speak to each other based upon the 2-5 minute scenes. Each language chapter is shown following active listening direction and lesson direction from the teacher, it is never passive observation. That content is then sung and used in class often and in other times of day, such as using Spanish in math, art and social studies.