Teaching Spanish the Olé Way: An Innovative Approach in the UK

We are very proud to be featured in the UK Spanish Magazine El Iberico with an article by Conxa Rodriguez, highlighting our CEO and Founder, Mari Carmen Torres Giron. The piece delves into her inspiring journey and innovative approach to teaching Spanish in the UK. We have translated the text for you, but if you speak Spanish, you will enjoy the original article even more! Olé… al referente de la enseñanza del español en Reino Unido - El Ibérico (eliberico.com)

Mari Carmen's approach, through her initiative Olé Spanish for Everyone, eschews outdated methods in favor of engaging and interactive activities. From music and theater to cooking and cinema, her classes make learning Spanish a lively and immersive experience. Dive in to learn more about how one educator is making a difference in the world of language learning.

Ole Spanish for Everyone is truly for Everyone

Olé... to the benchmark of Spanish teaching in the United Kingdom

With parents who were teachers, first in a rural multi-age classroom and later in Córdoba, the provincial capital, and holding a teaching degree since 1992, Mari Carmen Torres knows what she’s talking about when it comes to education, particularly learning a foreign language. She has focused on teaching Spanish in the UK, eschewing traditional or outdated methods and emphasizing learning through fun, interactivity, music, theater, cooking, cinema, or any activity that requires verbal communication.

With the charm characteristic of Andalusians, she boldly states, “I am better than María Montessori, modesty aside, because I live in a different educational context due to the evolution of alternative education.” It’s clear that the renowned pedagogue (1870-1952) often comes up in discussions about Mari Carmen’s educational project. She is the founder of Olé Spanish for Everyone, a Spanish teaching initiative in the UK based on interaction, immersion, stimulation, and entertainment. For example, one can learn the correct use of the past perfect tense by constructing sentences that prompt responses using it. “At Olé Spanish for Everyone, we do this daily. What’s the point of making someone conjugate all verb tenses if they can’t apply them to real-life situations?” she explains from her home in north London, surrounded by books and pedagogical materials.

With a family and educational background ranging from the village’s multi-age school, which she praises for its age diversity and some aspects, to age-grouped schools in Córdoba, she moved to London at 23 to improve her English. Teaching in English schools (public and private; primary and secondary; inside and outside the educational program), and having studied French, she found herself veering into graphic design for City banks until her first child was born in 2001. In their bilingual home, she revived the family trade, specifically teaching Spanish, first to her child and his peers. “There’s now a generation I call ‘Bebe Ole’ who learned Spanish with my son. That’s when I started using alternative methods because you can’t talk grammar rules to a three or four-year-old, but you can tell them the story of the Three Little Pigs with embedded grammar,” Mari Carmen recounts, clearly having thought it through and practiced it.

Her son grew alongside Olé Spanish for Everyone. Today, they have 2,000 students enrolled in their virtual and in-person schools. The educational project expanded significantly in 2020. Using her ingenuity, she smoothly created the Olé Spanish for Everyone logo in yellow and red, leveraging her graphic design skills. The emblem has proven attractive and effective, conveying the same passion she brings to her work and the enthusiasm with which she speaks about it. The foundation of what is now a prominent alternative Spanish teaching brand in the UK developed alongside her son, who has joined the initiative.

Mari Carmen planned the expansion through franchises in 2020, amid the onset of the Covid pandemic which spurred online living and learning. Currently, 15% of the classes remain online. “The franchise offers teacher training, materials, administrative system, and our name for a specific geographic area, allowing tutors to make a living. We avoid competition within the same area: one franchise per neighborhood. We are now looking for people to join our franchise network; it resembles a map of Spain with almost all regions represented,” Mari Carmen notes, proud of seeing her adult students take responsibility. A few years after having her son, she had a daughter, making Olé Spanish for Everyone her third creation.

“Before adopting the franchise model, I had employees, but they come and go, and there’s always some uncertainty. With franchises, we also share events, like flamenco, paella eating, or sardana dancing; the franchises have some autonomy while adhering to the core educational methodology,” she says confidently, having taught in London for over two decades, and from her entire life since the village school in Córdoba, where her teacher parents moved to the capital when she was nine.

More than just a school. Ole Spanish is a way of life

With business expansion, adult and retired students and custom courses also arrived, always with the interactive and alternative methodology, similar to the experience of Summerhill School in England, founded in 1921 and still operating. “We have a nonagenarian student,” Mari Carmen highlights, contrasting with the earlier mentioned ‘Bebé Olé.’ “In every age and teaching phase, language learning is done differently, though some basic principles apply,” she adds.

On the often-politically mentioned language immersion, she says: “In our camps, both here and in Spain, mobile phones are allowed for one hour a day; the rest is lived in Spanish. Here, it’s not country immersion, but it is for the duration of the camp. We’ve recently held one in the Cazorla mountains, in Salamanca, Córdoba... always focusing on language learning and cultural diversity.”

Mari Carmen believes that Artificial Intelligence will complement her work since human communication is irreplaceable. “One can’t replace the other, but there are educational programs incorporating AI, which in accents, stimuli, apathy, and especially passion for what we do, don’t compare to human communication,” she says about the future. What gives her optimism for the next phase of her project is the growing number of Spanish speakers worldwide and the rising prominence of Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic.

Regarding the increasing number of Spanish speakers, she recalls: “Do you remember that TV program called 300 Millones (300 Million Spanish Speakers)? Well, now we are 600 million. In the US, it’s the second language, and the 21st century will be the century of the Spanish Lan, I’m convinced of it.”