The Winner of Company Woman of the Year 2007 is...

Jane Cronin: Cronin Language Services www.croninlanguages.com

Jane I have looked at your WebPages and although I don’t know you personally it is quite easy to see why you have won your website is most informative and with lots of hard work it is very clear that you do a fantastic job here in Spain helping people to overcome by far one of the biggest problems with relocating here... Not speaking the language!

About Jane Cronin

Jane moved to Spain in 1987 as a fully qualified teacher of English Language and Literature, English as a Foreign and Second Language and Communications. After working as an English teacher for International House in Santander for two years she set up her own English language academy in Llanes, Asturias which she ran for 11 years. During this time she gained experience in English language teaching for various specific purposes, at all levels and to all ages from 3 years old to adult. She also ran all aspects of her business as part of the local community and learnt both written and spoken Spanish.

In 1995 she started working as an oral language examiner for UCLES (Cambridge) examining at all levels, and in 1997 became the Team Leader for upper suite (advanced) UCLES oral examiners for the region of Asturias. From 1998 she also worked as a teacher trainer for Longman and Oxford University Press, running seminars for Spanish state school teachers of English. In 2001 Jane completed an advanced diploma by distance learning in English Language Teaching for Young Learners with Oxford Brookes University.

In 2001 Jane moved to the province of Alicante and started work as an interpreter, translator and teacher of Spanish language. In May 2002 she produced an introductory Spanish language video, teaching survival Spanish and introducing people to life in Spain. The original version was called “Spanish like what they Speak it”. This was re-released in October 2002 in a more professional format under the title “Spanish as it is Spoken”. Also in 2002 Jane started work as a teacher/communicator for a number of expatriate social clubs around the Costa Blanca area and developed her unique teaching style, aimed at meeting the real language needs and challenges of her audience in a humorous and meaningful way.

As well as developing her own Spanish language courses Jane has broadcast regularly on Onda Cero International Radio and worked as a free-lance journalist for the CB Friday newspaper. In May 2003 Jane started up a social club called The Crossroads Club aimed at helping English speaking expatriates settle into life in Spain.

In June 2004 Jane produced an audio CD course entitled "Estoy aprendiendo español - I'm learning Spanish" and in November 2005 brought out her first book "Going Native", a light-hearted look at learning Spanish in Spain.

Since 2005 Jane has been broadcasting "Spanish Lessons Sol Style" on Sol Productions television, which is broadcast to 400,000 viewers along the Alicante, Murcia and Almería coastlines of Spain.