MEET THE TEAM

Gill Parker

Musician, composer and vocalist

      I have always been surrounded by music and was lucky to have grown up in a home where it was encouraged, where everybody sang and played different instruments.

      I studied Music at Oxford University and then I became a teacher. This gave me the chance to pass on my love of music to many children over twenty years of working in education. My work with choirs of all ages and abilities, supported by my singing teaching, has given me the knowledge of song-writing for specific target age groups. 

      I have sung both as a soloist and as a choral singer in France, Italy, Greece and Russia as well as performing in many concert halls, Churches and Cathedrals across the UK. I have had songs and poems published in both books and magazines by Scholastic. I have spent many years focusing on teaching harmony techniques and composition to GCSE and A-Level students, examining both subjects for more than a decade.

      In this collection of Spanish language songs, I have deliberately written in an almost exclusively syllabic style in order for students to learn the speech rhythms of vocabulary.  I have kept the melodies within a reasonable limited vocal range in order to make them accessible for most singers from the age of 14 years. The songs are easy to listen to and rather catchy, so I hope they will help to make learning fun!

 

 Isabel O’Donoghue

Journalist, MA in Economics, NPQLT, Spanish Teacher, Author

      I am from Colombia, in South America, and I have been teaching Spanish for more than 20 years in the UK. As a journalist, I enjoy writing for different audiences and I found that writing the lyrics for the songs that we are producing is very rewarding.

      I feel passionate about teaching and learning. During my experience as a teacher, I have produced a good range of resources to support students and staff members from different contexts. My passion for music started when I was a child. When doing my homework and preparing different assignments, my mother asked me to sing the parts that I found difficult to learn. Making songs in order to help me remember different subject contents made my learning easy and accessible, as doing this for me was an enjoyable activity.

      I have been inspired by colleagues who are using effectively different types of social media and the internet to share their knowledge and expertise. I have just completed my NPQLT that is accredited by the Department for Education, and this course has challenged me to leave my comfort zone in order to learn how to use newer technology for education.

      Now I feel that it is time for me to share my resources as well as different ideas with other colleagues.

      Although I can communicate in other languages, at the moment I will be concentrating on producing and sharing resources in Spanish, my native language. I hope you find my resources useful and enjoyable to use.  

     With my colleague Gill we have a YouTube Channel and I also have a personal blog to discuss topics that I enjoy related to health and wellbeing. I have published five books with Amazon and you can find them in the Author Central Page. Also, I have a shop in TES where I share free resources.