Everyone, please help us welcome Silka to our team! Silka will be working alongside Rebecca Lee-Hunt teaching ESL levels 4-6. She is an amazing addition to our team and is going to be a wonderful resource for our students. Silka has had a colorful career path with many adventures doing seasonal work across the country. She was an engineer on a boat for national geographic for a few years and worked at tourist destinations! Throughout her professional years, Silka has also focused on one of her passions: music (performing, producing, and playing with other people). Her main goal is to travel and to surround herself with different people.
Three years ago she switched focus in her career and started to live to serve and help others. Being a very philosophical person and someone whose friends would always go to for advice, Silka became a life coach. This career felt right and was empowering for her and her clients, and the feeling of teaching and helping other people stayed with her.
With her background and education in Women and Japanese studies, teaching and activism is a driving force in Silka’s life. Learning English as a second or third language as an adult brings different dynamics to a classroom. Silka can sympathize and relate to our students because she knows firsthand what it is like for someone to learn a new language as an adult. Her family moved from the Philippines to Japan when she was a young child and then to the United States when she was 12, so her parents had to adapt as adult learners themselves.
She states that, In comparison to children as an adult you need to know the language for practical reasons, also when you educate the parents you, therefore, educate the children. The advice she would give to a student is to, Take it one day at a time, do not get discouraged if you do not see the immediate progress that you are making.
Fun Facts about Silka
Silka loves to play video games and enjoys getting involved in the gaming world when she is not working.
Do you play any instruments?
Yes, Silka sings and plays many instruments like the ukulele, bass guitar, piano, drums, and she has been focusing on using synthesizers for recording music!
What do you do for fun in the winter?
In the wintertime, Silka is continuing her love for music and is learning to play the drums in her spare time. She also loves to write and produce music along with her brother. Lastly, she, like most of us, enjoys the occasional Netflix series as her guilty pleasure!