TEACHER TRAINING TEAM
Name: Sam Pickard
Birthplace: Sheffield, England
Residence: Marbella
Sam is the Publishing & Training Manager at Burlington Books and has been giving talks and classes for over 20 years. He started teaching at an all-girls school in Birmingham, UK back in the 1990’s and before that he was the singer and bass player in a hugely unsuccessful rock band.
Favourite place in Spain: Valladolid, ¡Aupa Pucela!
Name: Nick Evans
Birthplace: Swansea, Wales
Residence: Madrid
Nick Evans was born in Swansea, South Wales and travelled the world as a radio operator in the British Royal Navy before moving to Spain in the year 2001. He became an in – house teacher trainer at Burlington Books in 2010.
Favourite place in Spain: Fisterra, A Coruña. (Finisterre), “The end of the world” that looks so much like home!
Name: Jon Ostler
Birthplace: Bristol, England
Residence: Madrid
Jon Ostler has been working as a teacher trainer for Burlington Books since 2007. He worked for local government in Wales before becoming an English teacher in 1998. He has worked in different areas of Spain and also spent two years teaching secondary English in Qatar.
Favourite place in Spain: Asturias
Name: Mark Samson
Birthplace: Bristol, England
Residence: Bilbao
Mark is a teacher trainer and speaker at Burlington Books and has been giving classes and talks since 2015. He started teaching in 2008 in English language schools and giving in-house Business English classes at various companies in the Basque country. His passions are spending time with his family and electronic dance music. He has been DJing in night clubs and at music festivals around the UK and Spain for the last 20 years.
Favourite place in Spain: Cantabria
Name: Cristina Vargas
Birthplace: Puerto Rico
Residence: Barcelona
Cristina is an American Teacher Trainer at Burlington Books and has been teaching and translating since 2006. Being from Puerto Rico means that she is a native English and Spanish speaker, the best of both worlds! When she isn’t moulding young minds as a teacher, she enjoys all things music, either going to festivals or collecting vinyl records and DJing whenever possible.
Favourite place in Spain: Menorca
Name: Johnny Flynn
Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
Residence: Seville
Johnny has been teaching English in Spain for over 12 years to students of all ages and levels. He started teaching English in a language school in A Coruña and moved on to work as a freelance English teacher. Prior to this, he worked for technology companies (in both the UK and Ireland), managing teams in the area of financial services, project management and customer service. He loves coming up with tricks to help students improve their English.
Favourite place in Spain: Galicia
Name: Amy Noronha
Birthplace: Liverpool, England
Residence: Valencia
Amy started working with Burlington Books in Andalucia in 2021 and she is now working in Valencia. In 2016 she graduated in Fashion Management and Marketing and got stuck into a career in buying and product development. Having always wanted to travel, she decided to venture over to Spain in 2019 and teach English. She is an experienced exam preparation teacher.
Favourite place in Spain: Fanzara, Castellon
Name: Frank Carrizo Zirit
Birthplace: Maracaibo, Venezuela
Residence: Madrid
Frank grew up between Venezuela and Miami before moving to Spain, where he has been teaching English and preparing students for international exams for many years. Passionate about language and culture, he is also a lifelong science fiction fan who loves writing stories that challenge the mind. When not teaching, he’s often listening to music or memorising lyrics in different languages.
Favourite place: Madrid — multicultural, vibrant and still wonderfully human.
Name: Daimí Delgado
Birthplace: Cuba
Residence: Madrid
Daimí grew up Cuban American, studied literature and education in the U.S., then surprised everyone (including herself) by moving to Spain to study performing arts, specifically theatre and dance. She likes to think she’s living Hannah Montana’s “best of both worlds,” switching between English and Spanish and balancing work and performing.
Off the clock and off the stage, she’s likely seeking out beaches to explore.
Favourite place in Spain: Dénia, Alicante
Name: Luc Ciotkowski
Birthplace: North Yorkshire, England
Residence: Madrid
Luc is an English-born Scotsman who left Edinburgh to become an English teacher in France in 2003. He has been teaching, training and designing courses in Madrid since 2005 in universities, language schools, corporate settings and creative spaces. For the past decade, he has also led workshops in improvisation theatre in English and Spanish that help grow confidence, creativity and connection. What he most loves, though, is performing improvisation theatre.
Favourite place in Spain: Granada