Read for fun · Learn for real

Profe Lee

Comprehensible Input Spanish lessons — one on one, every level, in Austin and online.

Email me about lessons How it works
★ Reading & listening ★ Meaningful interaction ★ No conjugation drills

The method

Understand first. The speaking follows.

Most language teaching is built around memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary lists, which gives you an artificial sense of progress. Then you get out into the real world and find you can't actually use it.

Comprehensible Input theory, from the linguist Stephen Krashen, explains why. Before you can produce a language, you have to receive an enormous amount of it — and not just any input. It has to be comprehensible, and it has to be compelling.

Encounters before a new word is really yours — five for one student, a hundred and fifty for another, for the very same word. A class of thirty moves at one speed. One on one, you move at yours.

Free voluntary reading may be the most powerful tool we have in language education.
★ Stephen Krashen, PhD
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Comprehensible, and compelling

Input you can follow, about something you actually want to follow. Gestures, pictures, cognates and a slower pace do the work translation usually does — and the subject is chosen so you'd want to know how it ends anyway.

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Reading for fun does the heavy lifting

Short novels, news, song lyrics — whatever pulls you in. Recreational reading is the most efficient way there is to meet words enough times for them to stick, and it's the only method that doesn't feel like studying.

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Conversation with a point

Not role-plays about booking a hotel room. Real questions with real answers, at whatever level you can handle today, so the language is attached to something you meant.

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Low pressure, on purpose

Anxiety is the thing that stops acquisition cold. Mistakes are expected and uninteresting; you'll never be put on the spot to conjugate under pressure. Most students say this is the part that changed everything.

How we work

We find out where you actually are

A short conversation in Spanish and English tells me more than any placement test. Nothing to prepare for the first lesson.

You pick ten books at your level

From the reading list — chosen so you can follow them without a dictionary in your lap. Read thirty minutes a day, keep what you enjoy, abandon what you don't.

We meet and talk about them — in Spanish

This is where the reading turns into speech. I ask a lot of questions and I'm patient with the answers; you'll find out how much you've quietly absorbed.

You keep reading between lessons

The work between sessions is enjoyable input, never worksheets. That's what makes the progress compound instead of evaporate.

Reading list

Where to start.

These are the books I put in front of students — graded readers written for people acquiring Spanish, not translated classics with a glossary in the back. Pick ten you like the sound of and read thirty minutes a day.

The pink number is the book's unique word count: how many different words you need to read it. That, not page count, is what makes a book easy or hard. Start well below where you think you should be.

Level 1 61 books

Level 2 23 books

Level 3–4 10 books

Books are listed easiest first within each level. Every title links to the publisher or the author's own shop wherever one exists — these are small presses, and the writers keep more when you buy direct. I earn nothing either way. A dash in place of a word count means the publisher never released one, usually for poetry or short-story collections where the number wouldn't mean much anyway.

Lessons

One on one, every level.

Lessons are built around your goals — whether that's talking with your abuela, the folks you work with, or just being able to use the language on vacation. These are the three places people usually start.

Starting from zero

You've never studied Spanish, or you did in high school and none of it stuck. We start with input you can understand from day one — no memorizing charts, no apologizing for your accent.

Stuck in the middle

You can read a menu and follow a podcast, but you freeze when someone speaks to you. This is the most common place to be, and the most satisfying to get unstuck from.

Advanced & heritage speakers

You're fluent but want range — literature, professional vocabulary, writing, or the formal Spanish you never got in school. We go wherever your goal is.

How it works

Sixty-minute private lessons, online anywhere or in person in Austin. All materials included. Email me with your level, your goals, and the times that work for you, and I'll send availability and rates.

Students

What people say after a year.

“

He is the best language teacher I have ever had and I have had quite a few over the years. He taught us grammar without making it a conjugation drudgery. He is supportive and you never feel shy about just jumping in and practicing even knowing you are making a lot of mistakes… With his expert guidance my Spanish comprehension and speaking confidence has improved more in just one year than in all my years of college classes and other previous private language classes. Highly recommended!

Margaret Buford
“

I loved taking classes with Profe Lee. He is funny and engaging, and really made learning Spanish fun. I have been through three classes with him, and it's the best language learning experience I've ever had. Highly recommend!

Angela Russell
“

Don't look any further for Spanish lessons! This is it! I have taken many courses with different professors, and Lee is by far the best. He is so patient and kind. He meets you where you're at and is great at challenging you to go a bit further. Also, he's pretty funny, though I'd never tell him that lol… Even when I've had a long day or a tough week, I still want to learn from Lee.

Savanna Wells

About

¡Hola—soy Lee!

Lee Nagel, Spanish teacher, smiling outdoors in Austin ¡Mucho gusto!

I've spent the last eight years teaching Spanish — to high schoolers, community college students, adult learners, and a lot of people who arrived convinced they were simply bad at languages. They weren't. They'd just been taught a language the way you'd teach a spreadsheet.

I hold a Master of Arts in Hispanic Literature with an emphasis in Pedagogy and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Arkansas, where I managed three courses a semester as an instructor and tutored privately at the World Language Center. At Crockett Early College High School here in Austin I taught more than 500 students using Comprehensible Input, and raised over $2,000 in funding for my classes. Most recently I taught adult group lessons and led weekend conversation workshops at The Language House in Austin.

Outside the classroom, I've worked as a medical interpreter for brigades in Trujillo, Honduras, taught ESL with AmeriCorps through the Ozark Literacy Council, and played in the International Cultural Team and African Student Organization bands at the U of A. I've also taught songwriting and drumming to eighth graders — which is a long way of saying that lessons with me tend to involve music, stories and jokes about as often as they involve grammar.

  • ★M.A. Hispanic Literature, emphasis in Pedagogy — University of Arkansas
  • ★B.A. Spanish — University of Arkansas
  • ★The Language House, Austin — adult lessons & conversation workshops
  • ★Crockett Early College High School, Austin — Spanish teacher, 500+ students
  • ★Northwest Arkansas Community College — Spanish & Art History instructor
  • ★Ozark Literacy Council — AmeriCorps ESL instructor

Get started

Tell me where you are, and where you'd like to be.

Send me a note with your level, your goals, and the times that work for you. I'll reply with availability and rates — and if I'm not the right fit, I'll tell you who is.

Email Profe Lee
ProfeLeeATX@gmail.com