Hello! My name is Renee and I'm a student living in New York City in the United States. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and have spent most of my life teaching people, inside and outside of classrooms. I found my love of teaching when I was only a child, when I realized I loved to play the "Teacher" in games of pretend School. My first job was a position as a swim instructor at a local pool, where I taught kids to swim. I later went on to teach creative classes like ClayMation, Stop-Motion Animation, and Video Game Creation classes to kids. More recently, I took a specialized summer course for students showing an excellence in English to teach Writing & Reading, where I worked with learning disabled, English as a Second Language, undergraduate and graduate students to help them with their written language skills. As far as I'm concerned, I feel that teaching is my calling in life, and it enriches my life in more ways than anything else I've experienced. Right now, I have some experience speaking Spanish. I'm also in the very early stages of learning Russian so that I can communicate with members of my boyfriend's family who have just arrived in the United States. I hope to strengthen my languages and to help others with theirs on italki, and maybe to earn a little extra money to pay for my exorbitant school tuition!