We were lucky to catch up with Carmen Juncal recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carmen, appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents have done many things right that have shaped who I am as a person and professional. Among all those things, three have become the cornerstones of who I am today.

The first thing my parents did right was to teach me how to respect and love myself and others. They have taken care of me since I was a child and provided me with the essentials for a comfortable and healthy life. They always have highlighted the importance of love and respect for ourselves and others. That is because these values are vital for living in peace. Also, these qualities are critical to creating caring families and communities that impact all around us. My parents always told me I should respect and love myself to know how to do the same with people around me. As a mother and teacher, I tried to teach that to my children and students. Respecting and believing in yourself gives you the potential to bring the same respect and love to others.

The second thing they did right and impacted my life and career was to be passionate about learning. For example, my parents did a great job in teaching me how to read and solve basic math calculations. I cannot remember when I started learning those basic skills. The most important thing is that developing those skills at early age fostered my curiosity and passion for learning. I always asked questions about all the things I read around me. I remember especially the day I saw a word in English for the first time. My native language is Spanish, so at the age of 5, someone gave me a present for my birthday. That present was a t-shirt with strange words that I couldn’t read. My parents said those were English words. Unfortunately, they did not know English, so they could not explain to me what those words meant. For the next few days, I continued talking about those English words. I needed to know how to read them. My parents found a solution. When I was a child, the internet did not exist to answer all my questions instantly, so my parents gave me a Spanish-English dictionary. I was not familiar with a dictionary either. However, I started exploring and researching in that big book and found new and fascinating things about English words. Unexpectedly, that experience generated more questions too. My parents provided me with the resources that helped me to fill in my curiosity by myself.

That leads to the third thing that they did right. My parents taught me about perseverance. As a little child exploring a Spanish-English dictionary is not an easy task. So when I became frustrated about not finding all the answers I needed due to my lack of experience with dictionaries, my parents helped me to think about solutions. Instead of answering my questions or asking me to give up because I was too young to understand how a dictionary works, they asked me more questions that helped me to reflect on how to solve the challenges I was facing.

My parents did many things right. Teaching me how to respect and love myself and others, be passionate about learning, and be perseverant have been the most important. These three elements have helped me to look for solutions, believe in myself and my talents, and help others around me to do the same. These elements have been essential in becoming a teacher and growing my career in the educational field.

Carmen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a mother, a teacher, a lifelong learner, and the founder of CJ Learning Keys.

​I was born in Venezuela, and since childhood, I have enjoyed learning new things each day and teaching others those things. For this reason, I decided to become a teacher. I have been a teacher for over twenty-seven years. My experience includes teaching different grade levels and academic subjects in English and Spanish.

In September 2016, I moved from Venezuela to Orlando with my husband and two children to improve my English skills and develop my career opportunities. That decision opened many doors.

I graduated from Rollins College with a Master’s degree in Arts in Teaching with an emphasis in reading and English for Speakers of Other Languages strategies (ESOL). That experience brought me a clear perspective of how children learn to read and what elements can hinder the learning process of this essential skill. That made me aware of how many children struggle with reading, not only English-speaker students but especially those whose native language is different from English.

Reading is a big concern, and frequently, these students do not read in their native language when they start to learn to read in English creating huge learning gaps. I learned how to assess these students and create customized reading intervention plans to address their reading difficulties and the impact on other academic subject areas like Math, Science, and Social Studies.

Learning to read is one of the most fundamental skills to learn about anything else around us. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in 2020, the reading issues of many children got more challenging. Students not only needed to learn grade-level academic skills but also figure out how to manage technology in a distance learning format.

This crisis inspired me to create CJ Learning Keys. The main goal was to help Spanish-speaker families understand the distance learning format, motivate reading at home, and learn how to use technology to keep learning.

I started with an Instagram account to share my knowledge about English, Spanish, planning, reading motivation, the United States educational system, math, science, and social studies through videos, photo galleries, and other social media content formats. I also provided individual students with online tutoring and direct messages to parents’ support.

After two years, this project has evolved. I have created my website, a YouTube channel, and accounts on different social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. On March 27, 2022, I self-published my first book “SCHOOL SE ESCRIBE CON E,” (School is written with E). The purpose is to help Spanish-speaker families to know about the United States educational system and how to overcome the challenges with their children’s bilingual education in this country. This book is currently available in Spanish. I am working now on translating it into English to help other families whose native language is different from English or Spanish but face a similar situation.

Additionally, I want to continue publishing more books, creating online courses, and producing more videos to continue helping English and Non-English speaker families with reading, bilingual language development, and learning academic content in subject areas.

All this journey with CJ Learning Keys has brought me many new learnings related to marketing, social selling, copywriting, video, and photo edition, and production. Moreover, this experience filled my heart with gratitude and happiness. I have met many interesting people and witnessed how many of my students improve their bilingual reading and learning skills through my content and tutoring programs.

Through the articles, posts, and videos I publish on my website, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media accounts, students, parents, and other teachers can start working on their children’s needs and weaknesses in diverse subject areas. Also, they can contact me through email or direct messages on Instagram if they need more individualized support.

When I started my project CJ Learning Keys, my first followers were my family and friends. They provided me with great insights and meaningful feedback that helped me to improve my content. However, I realized I had no idea about design, social media content, copywriting, marketing, selling, and other relevant skills. To grow my audience and my project, I have to continue learning. Then I took some courses and connected with people that had their business projects running on social media. After a while, all these new skill set helped me to improve my content and be discovered by new audiences. Little by little, my work started to be shown in local news channels, newspapers, and online magazines.

All of that has been very helpful in growing my community, but the most crucial element has been learning how to listen to my audience’s needs and interests. You always have to think not about what you want to tell your audience but about how your message and your content can help them to solve their problems or learn new skills. Another key factor is patience. Building a social media community takes time. You need to understand that each of your followers is not a number but a person who deserves respect and needs your help. Finally, be consistent. You can provide that help, but you need to be consistent. Your audience will grow according to your consistency.

Don’t be worried if your piece of content has few visualizations and if you only get one or two new followers each day. Pay attention to the quality of your content and be proud of each achievement and new person that learns and solves any problem thanks to you. Believe in your talent, be patient, and be consistent. Each little step will guide you to help and grow your social media community.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

A story from my journey that illustrates resilience is when I emigrated to the United States. When I moved, many things changed in my life. I faced the pain of being far from my mother, father, and sister. At the same time, I had to raise my two children and help them to overcome their challenges in a new school, far from their friends, learn a different language than their native one, and learn more distinctly than before.

Also, I started studying at college to improve my English skills. My goal was to graduate with a master’s that connected my previous experience as a teacher with new career opportunities. Each day had challenges and difficulties, and I had to face them. Even though many times I was tempted to give up, I took a deep breath and trusted in god to have enough strength to learn, unlearn, relearn and continue forward.

After four years, when everything started becoming clear and more stable, COVID-19 hit the world. I lost my job, and things seemed to become worst and worst. I spent four years learning English, learning the culture of the United States, understanding the educational system, and overcoming the challenges and difficulties of completing a master’s degree, and suddenly everything stopped. However, at one point, I realized that these four years had taught me resilience.

The COVID crisis became the opportunity to start shaping an idea I had in my mind for many years, but I did not have the time or braveness to start. I understood that maybe I had lost my job, but I had not lost my abilities, learnings, and talents. That new perspective transformed my life to keep moving forward regardless of difficulties. After two years, I can see how resilience paid off and how CJ Learning Keys is now a clear initiative that has helped my community, my family, and myself to become stronger and more productive than before.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cjlearningkeys.com
• Instagram: https://www.cjlearningkeys.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cj.learning.keys
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LearningCj
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIZ6IEi_xvv0EItwEr4C3w
• Other: Mi Book, School se Escribe con E, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WMSQBY9

Image Credits
Photobyjosegre