Welcome to My Portfolio
My name is Robert Vogelpohl, and I am a fourth-year teacher in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I taught one year as an ESL teacher before teaching Spanish, which I currently teach. I graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, and I am pursuing a Master of Science in Education from Johns Hopkins University.
I was born in Minnesota and raised in Minnesota, Nebraska and Tennessee. As the oldest of eleven children, I spent much of my life helping my parents take care of my siblings. Growing up around so many children pushed me to pursue a career in education.
From Costa Rica, I looked for teaching jobs online and came across a company that hires English teachers in China. I received the job, and after 2 months preparing my visa and working permit, I landed in Tianjin, China, where I spent the next year teaching students (ages 3-11) English in an immersive English-only setting.
In 2014 I completed a TESOL (Teach English to Speakers of Other Languages) course in Heredia, Costa Rica, which is about 20 minutes outside of the capital, San Jose. Here I had my first student-facing opportunities.
In 2017 I joined Teach for America as a corps member and relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut to begin a new chapter as a high school Spanish teacher. Throughout my two years in the corps and in the classroom, I have faced many challenges that often arise in districts facing inequitable funding and allocation of resources, on top of being a new teacher. However, with the help of TFA, my colleagues, and my professors at Johns Hopkins, I saw drastic differences in my teaching style and student outcomes by the end of my service.
I am now teaching my third year as a High School Spanish teacher, and I feel much more confident in my lesson planning and facilitating of lessons and activities. That being said, I have many areas that I hope to improve this year.
