Over the last decade Teresa has taken a special interest in preparing children and teenagers for the different Cambridge exam levels. She has worked as an ESL Teacher with many different language schools throughout the district of Lisbon, as well as an English Teacher to the Portuguese Curriculum from pre-school, to 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles.
Teresa strongly believes that in order to fully retain information a person needs to experience it hands-on, so she constantly brings practical elements and different ways of experimenting the target language in the form of songs, games or projects. Due to her very own creative processes, she’s fully adaptable to the needs of the different children and is able to mould herself to the required style of learning of a particular child or group of children.
Teresa is also very passionate about teaching adults to overcome their own barriers when it comes to learning English. She’s often heard saying that “one of the biggest pleasures of teaching an adult to understand and then speak the English language is to see the surprise in their faces when they first realise that they can hold a basic conversation with someone else.”
Interesting Fact Did you know that Teresa is a keen cake designer?
Nejal Chotalal
Nejal holds a MSc in Psychology and is a flexible team member with great communication and problem solving skills, these allow her to be a good and efficient communicator, adapting her organisational skills as needed. Her leadership abilities have gained her more responsibility and trust in the working environment.
Her experience with children from different cultures and abilities has brought her attention to a person-centred approached, she is able to customise her working environment to fit the individual. Working with children has given her the opportunity to communicate productively with care-givers and express her concerns and satisfactions.
She has worked with elder individuals with different backgrounds, ages and disabilities, which experience has allowed to be creative and use her own initiative. Her passion for psychology pushes her to broaden her skills in the field. Trial and error also allow her to analyse which method works best.
Interesting Fact Did you know that Nejal can fluently speak 3 different languages?
Our collaborators
Vickie Stewart
As a lifelong believer that people of all ages should always embrace their inner child, Vickie has worked and played with children by creating meaningful connections through creativity, imagination, fun and kindness in her teaching experience.
Vickie has been in a classroom environment for the past eight years, with students ranging from 3 to 7 years old, in international schools both in Brazil and Portugal.
She is passionate about the arts, nature, and travel. Her multicultural upbringing has been pivotal in developing her open-mindedness, flexibility and adaptability in terms of discovering a child’s unique personalities and needs to fulfil them as positively as possible.
Vickie finds the most joy in nurturing children’s natural curiosities and guiding them through learning experiences that engage their imagination, spark their interest and allow them to proudly take ownership of their new understandings. Vickie’s teaching through play, storybooks, arts and crafts, engagement with nature, and other hands-on activities with real-life connections will develop students in a whole-child approach to learning that will also give attention to their social and emotional well-being. In this way, students can feel more confident, safe and happy to explore and discover the world around them.
Interesting Fact Did you know that Vickie is in the process of writing and illustrating her own children’s book?
Patrícia recently decided to change careers and follow one of her passions: working with children. Patricia likes learning from the little ones and finds great motivation in dealing with different learning contexts. She is a happy and energetic person who loves to play football and dance in her free time.
Fun fact Patricia practices Kiro – a type of martial art.
Betina Osterkamp
After having lived in Portugal in the 80s and 90s, during which time she’s grown to love the country and its people, Betina made the definite move to Portugal in 2019. She graduated from high school, went on to do a technical apprenticeship in Munich and then pursued a technical career for 20 years. Betina had a change of career nine years ago and decided to study to become a nursery school teacher. She’s been working in international schools ever since. Betina is very excited to be working at the Butterflies Learning Centre and hopes to contribute with her own experience as she grew up abroad and learned two languages at the same time as a little girl.
Interesting Fact Betina was born and raised in Mexico City. She speaks English, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
Catarina Correia Rolo
Catarina’s got a degree in Educational Psychology.
People’s relationships with themselves and with each other have been the cause for many moments of great reflection and study for Catarina. This has prompted her to further her studies into Family Therapy and deepen her knowledge in the field of clinical psychology.
Since the very beginning of her career, Catarina’s path as a psychologist has taken her to integrate various multi-disciplinary teams at both Portuguese and Bilingual schooling systems where, besides having taken the role of coordinator, she worked accompanying the development of children and teenagers, as well as of children with special needs. She has provided support and intervened when necessary with families, she has developed methods to give support to the school teams and designed and supported programs that enhance the overall development of the entire school community.
Fun fact Did you know that Catarina also teaches Yoga and practices Psyco-aromatherapy?
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Our team
Teresa de Gruyter
Over the last decade Teresa has taken a special interest in preparing children and teenagers for the different Cambridge exam levels. She has worked as an ESL Teacher with many different language schools throughout the district of Lisbon, as well as an English Teacher to the Portuguese Curriculum from pre-school, to 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles.
Teresa strongly believes that in order to fully retain information a person needs to experience it hands-on, so she constantly brings practical elements and different ways of experimenting the target language in the form of songs, games or projects. Due to her very own creative processes, she’s fully adaptable to the needs of the different children and is able to mould herself to the required style of learning of a particular child or group of children.
Teresa is also very passionate about teaching adults to overcome their own barriers when it comes to learning English. She’s often heard saying that “one of the biggest pleasures of teaching an adult to understand and then speak the English language is to see the surprise in their faces when they first realise that they can hold a basic conversation with someone else.”
Interesting Fact
Did you know that Teresa is a keen cake designer?
Nejal Chotalal
Nejal holds a MSc in Psychology and is a flexible team member with great communication and problem solving skills, these allow her to be a good and efficient communicator, adapting her organisational skills as needed.
Her leadership abilities have gained her more responsibility and trust in the working environment.
Her experience with children from different cultures and abilities has brought her attention to a person-centred approached, she is able to customise her working environment to fit the individual. Working with children has given her the opportunity to communicate productively with care-givers and express her concerns and satisfactions.
She has worked with elder individuals with different backgrounds, ages and disabilities, which experience has allowed to be creative and use her own initiative. Her passion for psychology pushes her to broaden her skills in the field. Trial and error also allow her to analyse which method works best.
Interesting Fact
Did you know that Nejal can fluently speak 3 different languages?
Our
collaborators
Vickie Stewart
As a lifelong believer that people of all ages should always embrace their inner child, Vickie has worked and played with children by creating meaningful connections through creativity, imagination, fun and kindness in her teaching experience.
Vickie has been in a classroom environment for the past eight years, with students ranging from 3 to 7 years old, in international schools both in Brazil and Portugal.
She is passionate about the arts, nature, and travel. Her multicultural upbringing has been pivotal in developing her open-mindedness, flexibility and adaptability in terms of discovering a child’s unique personalities and needs to fulfil them as positively as possible.
Vickie finds the most joy in nurturing children’s natural curiosities and guiding them through learning experiences that engage their imagination, spark their interest and allow them to proudly take ownership of their new understandings. Vickie’s teaching through play, storybooks, arts and crafts, engagement with nature, and other hands-on activities with real-life connections will develop students in a whole-child approach to learning that will also give attention to their social and emotional well-being. In this way, students can feel more confident, safe and happy to explore and discover the world around them.
Interesting Fact
Did you know that Vickie is in the process of writing and illustrating her own children’s book?
Patricia Magalhães
Patrícia recently decided to change careers and follow one of her passions: working with children. Patricia likes learning from the little ones and finds great motivation in dealing with different learning contexts. She is a happy and energetic person who loves to play football and dance in her free time.
Fun fact
Patricia practices Kiro – a type of martial art.
Betina Osterkamp
After having lived in Portugal in the 80s and 90s, during which time she’s grown to love the country and its people, Betina made the definite move to Portugal in 2019.
She graduated from high school, went on to do a technical apprenticeship in Munich and then pursued a technical career for 20 years. Betina had a change of career nine years ago and decided to study to become a nursery school teacher. She’s been working in international schools ever since.
Betina is very excited to be working at the Butterflies Learning Centre and hopes to contribute with her own experience as she grew up abroad and learned two languages at the same time as a little girl.
Interesting Fact
Betina was born and raised in Mexico City. She speaks English, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
Catarina Correia Rolo
Catarina’s got a degree in Educational Psychology.
People’s relationships with themselves and with each other have been the cause for many moments of great reflection and study for Catarina. This has prompted her to further her studies into Family Therapy and deepen her knowledge in the field of clinical psychology.
Since the very beginning of her career, Catarina’s path as a psychologist has taken her to integrate various multi-disciplinary teams at both Portuguese and Bilingual schooling systems where, besides having taken the role of coordinator, she worked accompanying the development of children and teenagers, as well as of children with special needs. She has provided support and intervened when necessary with families, she has developed methods to give support to the school teams and designed and supported programs that enhance the overall development of the entire school community.
Fun fact
Did you know that Catarina also teaches Yoga and practices Psyco-aromatherapy?