Katja is currently working as an adjunct faculty at CELOP and Showa Boston. She also teaches adult and kids ashtanga yoga and knitting. Her qualifications include an MAT in Spanish and ESL, MA certification in both subjects, a BS and BA in both Developmental and Applied Psychology, and a certificate from the Yoga Alliance to teach Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama.
Katja originally worked as a counselor and a social worker before making a career switch to teaching. She originally taught Spanish, Latin, French, and later trained to teach ESL by obtaining an additional degree. She also taught Psychology and has worked as an International Student Coordinator and a Teacher’s Trainer for 6 years. She has visited many countries and comes from immigrant parents of Russian and Danish backgrounds. She started traveling at the age of five and eventually lived in Oman and taught for a few years at international schools in Muscat, Oman.

Her own culturally mixed background, along with a pure zeal to interact and work with international populations and foreign languages brought her to the point she is today. From an early age she was exposed to different languages, cultures, and travel. She has a continued interest in learning languages, and the methods that instill motivation in students to acquire second and third languages. She thinks that one of the best ways to experience both language and culture is through that another culture’s point of view. She finds students to be invigorating and motivating. Teaching is always challenging, and there are constant opportunities to motivate and widen students’ perspectives of language and culture, and to learn from them. She enjoys having a comfortable rapport with her students, and watching them find ways to develop their own patterns and processes for learning. When students have an opportunity to develop their own strategies, the learning experience will be memorable and effective. Students can then globalize their new patterns and apply them to other subjects and interests. She also believes that students should have lots of opportunities to be intellectually engaged by having ways to relate what they are currently learning to what is relevant to their own experiences, and to use interactive methods. If students have settings in which they can relate new material to their own lives and experience, motivation to use the new material will be present.

Her hobbies include painting, photography, writing, and long boarding.

Back to Faculty Page