Mundo de Pepita

We are Julie and Matt, two teachers with over 40 years combined experience. Julie has been teaching foreign languages (Spanish, Russian, and ESL) for over 20 years to all age levels, from age 4 to retired adults and founded the elementary Spanish program at the school where she teaches in 1998, teaching K-4 since then. She has given numerous presentations on building curriculum, assessment, and behaviour management and has served as a trustee and Board chair at Penobscot School, a nonprofit language school, and as the Maine Representative for NNELL (National Network for Early Language Learning). Matthew is a Special Education teacher with a speciality in Reading and Dyslexia. He has taught at numerous schools both in the UK and the USA and serves on several boards, both in an educational capacity and as Treasurer. He is the marketing genius behind Mundo de Pepita.

Teaching languages in a thematic, contextualized format is most definitely key. Presenting vocabulary and structure in context provides students with a deeper level of learning, and has been shown in research to be the best approach for teaching a foreign language.

Julie has given over 100 hours of presentations on curriculum creation and planning, assessment, and classroom management including several times at FLAME (Foreign Language Association of Maine) and University of Maine at Augusta. Matthew has advised and coached numerous schools, non profit organizations, and teachers on creating vision and mission statements, goal planning, fundraising, and marketing.

Julie began studying Spanish in Kindergarten while living in Florida. Once in college, she majored in Russian and spent a semester abroad in Moscow where she had her first experience teaching ESL.

Julie and Matthew live on the coast of beautiful Maine, and enjoy hiking, swimming, and all things outdoors.