Jason Bush

The route of my career took many twists and turns before I ended up as the experienced Spanish language educator and curriculum developer I am today. When I began my Ph.D in theater history at Ohio State, I had no intentions of ever becoming a language teacher. It was the experience of living and working in Latin America while I was conducting research for my dissertation that led me to this divergent path. I acquired advanced proficiency in Spanish while living in Peru for a year to conduct field research on indigenous Peruvian dance on the global stage. Upon returning to the United States, I began to teach Spanish at Ohio State University, and I found language teaching to be fascinating because of its theatricality. I also greatly enjoy being close to the language and Spanish-speaking cultures on a daily basis.

Over the past decade, I have dedicated myself to language teaching and tutoring at the college, high school, and middle school levels. I have extensive experience teaching college courses at Ohio State University and San Jose State University. I have taught at the middle and high school levels at Basis Independent School, Stratford School, and at Khan Lab School. I also have tutored Spanish extensively for AJ Tutoring. During this decade, I have furthered my education by receiving a second master’s degree in Spanish at San Jose State, and I have sought out professional development opportunities through the Summer Language Institute through Southern Oregon University, the Stanford World Language Project, and the Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition through the University of Minnesota. As a world languages educator, I strongly believe that my objective is to help my students develop communicative competence and cultural knowledge of the target language and cultures. My students attempt to fulfill these objectives in a relaxed learning environment in which they feel safe to take risks and creatively play with the target language.

Outside of work, I love to travel, cook, walk on the beach, and return to my second home, Peru, where you will often find me during school breaks.