Carolyn Bracksieck

Born and raised in a small town in Wisconsin, Carolyn’s life changed when she studied abroad as an exchange student in Puebla, Mexico at 19 years old. She fell in love with the people, the food, the music – and her passion for language and culture was born. After graduating college and briefly teaching English at an American school in Chiapas, Mexico, she eventually made her way to Houston, Texas and became a teacher so she could share her love of Spanish with others.

Carolyn’s experience of being immersed in the culture helped shape her teaching philosophy. She believes in engaging with Spanish daily in structured ways that allow her students to play with the language and acquire practical skills for real world usage. As a Spanish teacher, Carolyn strongly identified with concepts taught in 7 Steps to a Language-Rich, Interactive Foreign Language Classroom, and her classroom walls and sentence stems were featured in the book when it was first published in 2018. She has presented at foreign language education conferences across the country, including ACTFL, TFLA, and SWCOLT, earning the award “Best of Texas” for one of her sessions.

In her seventeen years of experience in the classroom, Carolyn has taught all levels of Spanish and ELD and developed curriculum for her district. She currently is Department Chair and teaches upper-level Spanish in Lamar CISD outside of Houston. During her breaks from school, Carolyn shares her passion for culture with her students through educational trips abroad to Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries.