Deborah Weinheimer, MA TESOL (specializations: Language Program Management & Cross-cultural Communication), BA Spanish (minor: Sociology)

Growing up in an immigrant household gave me an acute awareness of the struggles encountered when adapting to life in a new country. As the only Brazilian immigrant in a small town in southern USA, my father regularly invited fellow immigrants of all nationalities into our home to welcome them and bond over their similar experiences. From a young age, I was surrounded by a diverse group of people of varying races, nationalities, cultures, sexualities, and religions, and I recognized differences as the norm. In undergrad, I minored in sociology with a focus on cultural studies to better understand how societies all over the world interact. Through these studies, I received training in cultural empathy that I advanced while working abroad. Additionally, my MA TESOL education at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey solidified my priority for building intercultural classroom competence.

Throughout my time living in Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, and Grenada, I retained an open mind and made a conscious effort to recognize and respect cultural differences. I quickly learned not to expect anything to be the way I understood and frequently asked questions to confirm whether I was correct in any assumptions. Culture and language change rapidly and I know to never take anything I have learned about a culture as absolute. I bring this mindset to my classes by exploring my students’ culture with curiosity, regardless of my familiarity with that culture. I strive to create a safe environment in all my classrooms and encourage my students to share their opinions while actively involving them in classroom decisions.

My experiences and teacher trainings have cultivated a cultural awareness that I bring to every class I teach. I endeavor to make my classroom an environment that emboldens students to celebrate their own differences while encouraging sensitivity when learning about differences of others. My classroom is a place where discussions are fostered that highlight the beauty in differences and emphasize the similarities between all people. I support my students in creating their own voice to add to the diversity of the English language and believe that all diversity makes our world wonderful.