iTravel to Learn

About Me – Marcel Castillo

Photo of Marcel Castillo

Marcel Castillo (mcastillo@palomar.edu)- ESL professor at Palomar College

In an attempt to find a different way to communicate, share my knowledge of culture and people, and to teach ESL to an ever-growing multi-cultural population in the United States, I have discovered that my travels around the world to discover and learn about people and their culture could easily be used to relate my experiences of world travel with my friends, relatives and people interested in travel and culture.  I have realized that my travel experiences could easily be used to teach grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing and linguistic concepts of the English language to any ESL students or to any one in the world wanting to improve their English skills. Accomplishing a BA degree in French with a minor in Math and Physics from U.C. Berkeley and two Masters in Education and TESOL from Cal State University Turlock and Cal State University Fullerton, I realized that those degrees weren’t enough to my craving to understand and discover the world.  My craving and curiosity pointed me in the direction of travel.  Thus, my travels have led me to study abroad programs in Paris at the University of Sorbonne, to work for the U.S. military base at Hanau, Germany and living with a German family, to three summer studies  at the University of Guadalajara through the University of San Diego Spanish abroad program, and to more language studies in Salzburg and Austria to learn German and to learn French at the University of Geneva. All these study abroad programs and work experiences abroad have widen my scope of how to learn a language and to connect with people of different cultures. These study abroad programs and my own travels with my family have taught me a lot about and opened my eyes to people, their culture, food, customs, and the history of the country.  So with all the pictures and videos I have taken, I had the idea of creating videos and organizing all of my pictures of places I have traveled,  writing and sharing my stories and adventures, and creating a website for students of ESL or for anyone wanting to improve their English skills and at the same time learning about different places through the reading, grammar, writing and reading exercises that come along with this website.  Not everyone in the world has been fortunate enough as I have been to travel around the world.  So why not share my travel experiences with them and teach them English and help them improve their English skills at the same time.  So voilá – my website was born.  I call it “iTravel to Learn.” I take you around the world and tell you stories about the different places I have traveled, and write about the people, the food, the adventure, and the experiences I have encountered while you learn English at the same time.  This is the mission and purpose of my website.

Mission Statement

My mission is to give people, especially students learning ESL (English-as- a Second Language) the opportunity to learn about the world, have a vicarious experience in traveling, and learn English at the same through the stories of my travels and information on the history, people and culture of the places I have traveled and at the same time providing grammar, vocabulary, reading, and writing exercises to further their knowledge of the English language.

Purpose of website

This website contains exercises in grammar, vocabulary, writing and reading that will help ESL students improve their skills in English at all levels (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and learn about the world and the people, their culture, and their customs.  The mission of this website is to promote the learning of English through the pictures and travel stories based on the travel around the world  of this author, Marcel Castillo, and to help people learn more about the world and its people through the author’s travel log. For this reason this website is called, “iTravel to Learn” (aka iTravel2Learn).

My vision of this website

When people travel they will see and experience different things, meet culturally different people, eat different food, experience the way of life of the places they visit, and perhaps make some kind of connection either through food, conversation, attending a religious or cultural ritual, or through some type of contact with the people they meet and the places they visit.  Traveling allows people to build new bridges to the unknown parts of the world.  These bridges then become our path to meeting and discovering people and their culture. My many travel experiences have become part of who I am, and by sharing these experiences to all ESL students wanting to improve their skills in English and to anyone interested in culture I sincerely hope that the knowledge and the experience that I impart through my website will enlighten and enhance their knowledge of English and the people and culture around them in an effort to understand the people of our planet and our global community.

Comments are closed.