STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
What Our Students Say About Learning with Us
Real experiences from professionals, diplomats, and executives who have achieved their goals.
I am pleased to say that Luis Castro was a very effective Spanish teacher. His teaching styles and method were most enjoyable. His flexibility in working small schedule change was most appreciated. His energy and enthusiasm toward teaching Spanish benefited me greatly.
I have had several one-on-one Spanish teachers in my career and Luis is the most energetic and motivated teacher I have ever had. He came to class energized and prepared every day and I attribute my high score on the proficiency exam to his hard work.
Luis Castro really helped me move from beginner Spanish to intermediate Spanish. I feel so much more comfortable with the language now. My speaking has improved, as has my understanding of the grammatical rules. I would highly recommend this Spanish class! It was very valuable to me.
I have taken classes from Luis for one year and feel that he has helped me make a lot of improvement with my Spanish skills. I think that his approach of combining some work in the text book, some work outside the class, informal conversation and audiotapes has been more helpful to me than other methods. Luis has been able to go slow when I have difficulties and faster at other times. I think that Luis’ approach has helped me to build my vocabulary. The Latinos at work say that my pronunciation has improved by working with Luis.
I would like to highly recommend Luis Castro as Spanish instructor. During the time he taught me in individual classes, my Spanish improved significantly. I particularly appreciated that he adapted the texts and lessons to my needs, taking care to choose texts and videos that were interesting for me and fit my language needs. He was also very happy to accommodate changes in class times (which at times was necessary due to my work schedule), and always came to class on time and well prepared. I also still benefit from some instructional materials and websites he made me aware of.
My experience learning Spanish has been fun and rapid, thanks to my instructor, Luis Castro. I began in a group class about 18 months ago and have studied privately with Luis for the past year. Luis demonstrates a lot of patience and encouragement in his teaching style. The lesson topics are very interesting and Luis has customized lessons for me so that I can learn the technical language of real estate, something necessary in my profession. I highly recommend Luis as a very capable and caring instructor.
I spent five weeks of intensive, one-on-one Spanish language instruction with Luis Castro to help dust off my skill set and work towards professional proficiency. Luis is very familiar with the ILR testing scale [0-5] and was able to quickly hone in on areas where I needed improvement and designed a plan to help improve in those areas. He put me through the paces with creative reading, listening, speaking, and grammatical exercises. He has a lot of reading and listening material to draw from including current events, health, science and ethics, economics, foreign policy, education, and sports, among other topics. He was patient, kind, generous, and fostered a learning environment where I felt as though I could make errors and ask questions. I would not hesitate to study with Luis again and would recommend him to anyone looking to acquire, improve, or perfect their Spanish language abilities.
I was fortunate to have Luis Angel Castro as my Spanish professor for about 3 months. From day one, Luis made it clear how he was going to help me. Thanks to Luis my Spanish vocabulary increased substantially. In fact, I had other Spanish speakers often tell me I taught them new words. Luis was exceptionally talented at having me read and dissect very complex articles, which exposed me to new words (as much as 15 new words a day) with a context I could understand too. Additionally, the variety of Luis’s readings exposed me to content that permitted me to form an opinion with sophisticated vocabulary I used when presenting. Luis’s flexibility and dedication to my improvement also was first class as he always went beyond what was expected. Without hesitation, I strongly recommend Luis.
I am pleased to write this letter of recommendation for Mr. Luis Castro. He has been invaluable in my mission to learn conversational Spanish both for personal and professional reasons. I have been working with him for over 1.5 years and can say that due to his educational guidance, his passion for teaching and skill set I have gained the foundations and confidence to speak with Spanish speaking patients in the hospital and social settings. This has allowed me to put my Spanish speaking patients at ease and most importantly provide better health care to them and their families during times of crisis. He shows his commitment to furthering my goals by his detailed and organized curriculum as he writes and teaches from his own published textbooks and has the unique ability to easily engage students like me in both medical and conversational Spanish. Based on his extensive experience with students in various fields he shows his versatility in helping students to achieve their individual goals.
Luis is a great teacher! I am lucky I found him. He made class fun and he is also patient while pushing you to be better. We discussed my goals at the beginning, and he catered our program exactly to my goal of passing the OPI test. I highly recommend him as a teacher. He is knowledgeable, personable and fun.
Luis has been my Spanish teacher. He has proven to be an excellent guide through the language and through the culture of South America. I have appreciated his method.
Luis did an excellent job. He is very patient and well organized. He always had lesson plans ready. Also, he practiced dialogue at the beginning of class, and related it to current events, which kept the class interesting.
Prior to meeting Luis, I had been taking Spanish classes for many years, and felt like I was not improving. Being able to both comprehend and speak clear, articulate, accurate Spanish is essential for my job, and I was frustrated at having been working for so long and making no progress. When I met Luis, however, all that changed. He is an incredible professor. His classes are interesting, dynamic, and completely revolutionized my ability to think and speak in Spanish. Without having him as a teacher, I wouldn’t be able to do my job, and I am so grateful to him for his professionalism, his expertise and his commitment to ensuring that I keep progressing and learning. I owe my Spanish proficiency entirely to him.
Dr. Castro was my Spanish teacher and was exceptional. He has prepared me to work at a professional and diplomatic level in Spanish for my new U.S. Embassy assignment to Quito, Ecuador. Dr. Castro cares about his students and uses a student-centered approach. He hones in on students’ different learning styles and meets them at their level. He motivates students to strive to achieve their best potential. He also understands proper pacing and rhythm of a learning environment, which was duly difficult considering the distance learning model that has prevailed during the pandemic.
This message is to commend Luis Castro’s Spanish language teaching skills. He was my one-on-one tutor for six intensive weeks, preparing me for the FSI test. He applied his excellent understanding of adult pedagogy to provide diverse and challenging classes, mixing conversation, listening, reading, and grammar, adapted to fit my progress. He prepared customized worksheets to address individual weaknesses. Besides his professional skills, Mr. Castro is personable, flexible, and friendly, which are essential qualities for intensive instruction.
Dr. Castro uses an effective mix of teaching methods. We start every class with a free-flowing conversation about our lives and current events. He then turns to a combination of short video or audio clips, exercises from his books, and supplemental reading to build my grammar knowledge and to improve my pronunciation and vocabulary. One of the most useful—albeit challenging—things we do in our sessions is to read and then discuss U.S. and international news stories. It is complicated enough to talk about political, science, and health developments in my native tongue. Doing the same thing in Spanish forces me to figure out how to respectfully express abstract ideas and complicated opinions with my still limited vocabulary. Dr. Castro goes well beyond teaching tourism or business Spanish; he teaches Spanish for full and informed engagement in the world.
If you are planning on taking Spanish classes in the DC area, I would like to recommend that you take classes with Luis Castro. Luis is an experienced, knowledgeable teacher who will work tirelessly to help you meet your goals. First and foremost Luis is professional. Always punctual and well-prepared for each lesson, Luis creates a variety of linguistic activities to keep you engaged and learning the entire class period. Luis is also very personable. He always greets you with a warm smile and is always ready for conversation. He makes having classes fun. In addition, Luis gets to know his students in order to assess their individual needs and interests, and make classes more interesting and relevant. I, myself, have been a teacher for more than ten years and know what a teacher should bring to the table. I am a demanding student. Luis Castro met and exceeded my expectations. I would whole-heartedly recommend him to anyone in need of a Spanish tutor.
I present my strongest recommendation for Mr. Luis Castro as a university-level Spanish language instructor. Over the last five months, my wife and I have been studying Spanish here in Washington DC. Under his instruction through a contract with the Defense Language Institute. Luis integrity, work ethic, and compassion are beyond approach. He’s one of the hardest working people I’ve met over 23 years of experience in leading people as an Air Force officer. I know that I can always count on him to go that extra mile for me – academically or personally. Luis cares deeply for his family, his students, and his recently adopted country. I already know with great certainty that Luis is one of the finest Spanish instructors here in the national capital region.
I have immensely enjoyed and profited from Luis’s classes. He is a first-rate Spanish teacher.
Luis has been a phenomenal instructor. I tried to learn Spanish previously, but with Luis, I’m learning much more quickly.
Luis is a great teacher. With him I learned a lot. I would happily recommend him to other students.
Luis is an excellent Spanish teacher. He always comes to class prepared and with a positive attitude to learn. Personally, I have been working with Luis to learn Spanish for over two years. As a student that has taken a slower approach to learning Spanish, Luis has always been patient and flexible with me and is willing to explain the material several times to ensure that I understand before moving forward. He uses a variety of materials to augment his teachings (his textbook, worksheets, audio recordings, songs, videos, etc.) and makes sure that he is challenging you to do it all, read, write and speak Spanish. Luis has helped me build confidence as a Spanish language learner that I did not think possible. I would recommend Luis as a teacher to anyone looking to learn Spanish or grow their Spanish skills.
Dr. Castro worked as an Independent Consultant with my company, Human Domain Solutions, LLC, as a Spanish language instructor, providing support to the Marine Corps-forces at Marine Base Quantico. With very short notice, Dr. Castro developed training curricula for three 5-week Spanish language courses to be taught at the Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. During his support to Human Domain Solutions, Dr. Castro worked with students of various language skills at Quantico, teaching Marine students in individual and small group settings. The students significantly improved their Spanish skills during their time with him. I particularly appreciated that he adapted the text and lessons to individual student needs, taking the time to choose lesson plans that would fit into their language needs. Dr. Castro is extremely proficient as a foreign language teacher and the Marine Corps customer language manager had high praise for his work performance.
I was a student of Mr. Castro for the first 6 months of 2011. During that time he took me from a beginner level to a point that I feel confident in my ability. I have studied 2 other languages, and am in some position to judge his methods compared to others I have experienced. The best way I can summarize this is to relate that before I began my study I asked the school to rotate teachers, and after I started with Mr. Castro, I resisted my own request. Mr. Castro has several qualities important to successful language teaching: first and foremost is patience; wherever the student is, he will meet at that point and proceed, always correcting, but never inhibiting expression. Next is being focused on the student rather than himself; the class is mostly spent with the student speaking, rather than listening, as is too often the case. Following this is flexibility; he interweaves grammar with conversation from the outset, to encourage the students to begin to express themselves from the outset. Finally, innovation; he uses the internet in very unique ways which combine challenging learning with diversion. My job requires high-level economic literacy, and as soon as he understood where I was going, Mr. Castro tailored part of our program to my individual needs. The other part of the program was his original text/method ‘Peru Spanish’. This is a progressive series of lessons that present grammar and vocabulary concepts through a unified format that starts with a fictional narrative or informative essay, and then adds supplementary exercises. Again, the emphasis is on quickly getting to the important takeoff point of self-expression. I found it a useful format for breaking the language into digestible chunks. On a personal note, I deeply admire Mr. Castro as a person, and see how his optimism leads him to always encourage the student; I always knew that our interests were the same and that my success was his success. I conclude where I began: Luis Castro is a unique instructor who has integrated his own style into his textbooks in a way I found very effective.
Luis, thank you for the exceptional language training. The articles and discussions on a range of topics helped refresh my listening and reading abilities, but more importantly enabled me to communicate my perspective. The articles on my future assignment helped expose me to issues that will likely still be present when I arrive there later this year. And lastly, I appreciate your patience and flexibility in working with me both via Zoom and via telephone depending on my work schedule.
Luis Castro has taught me Spanish for over a year. Luis has developed a teaching method that works with my schedule and the way I learn. His interest in public affairs allows us to have good conversation, in Spanish, and increase my confidence in learning a new language. To say nothing of the fact that he has written his own instructional book, provides unique assignments, and is an absolute joy to spend time with.
