Martina Bex wants to change the way we teach language

Martina Bex never intended to be a business owner, but a job teaching Spanish in Alaska put her on the path to entrepreneurship. In 2010, she founded The Comprehensible Classroom to help language teachers find a better way to reach their students.

Bex grew up near Syracuse, N.Y. She received her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and adolescent education at Nazareth University, followed by a master’s in Spanish language, literature and culture at Syracuse University. Her husband served in the Air Force, which is how the couple ended up in Alaska, where they spent 10 years.

Bex observed a colleague using what was then considered an alternative teaching methodology. The more she learned about it, the more intrigued she became and she began to adopt it, as well. Several teachers using the method were writing blogs about their experience and Bex did the same.

“With time, as the internet grew and social media took off, more people were finding out about this methodology and my blog became the go-to place,” she said.

“You don’t learn language like science or social studies,” Bex explained. “You can study grammar or vocabulary but that’s not language. We teach so that your brain is exposed, understands, processes and builds its own linguistic system.”

Bex said that while early adopters of what she refers to as “language acquisition” rather than “language learning” were risk takers, those who were newer to the methodology wanted assistance, which she began providing on a marketplace called Teachers Pay Teachers. As demand increased, she saw the need to provide training, so she began to formalize that, as well as creating curricula. She said The Comprehensible Classroom is the number one independently published world languages curriculum in the country.

Bex said that the way language is traditionally taught is not based on science or on how our brains learn language.

“When you first learn to speak as a child,” she said, “you’re not getting grammar rules or memorizing vocabulary. You absorb it and it builds the linguistic system in your head.”

She believes that emphasizing grammar and vocabulary leads to students who are convinced they can’t learn languages. “Every learner can be a language learner,” she said.

Bex speaks Spanish and English fluently and has what she refers to as “emerging French proficiency.”

The Comprehensible Classroom has a full Spanish curriculum and partial curricula for French, German and Latin. Between 150,000 and 200,000 teachers use their resources around the world and in every state in the union. It provides training for people at all levels and curricula for middle and high schools.

The Somos Curriculum is the company’s flagship product for novice and intermediate Spanish learners. Another product is Vamos, which is designed specifically for middle school and employs two full-time trainers.

The most recent addition is Garbanzo, a web application which was launched in 2019. Bex describes it as an online library of interactive texts including thousands of stories in both Spanish and English.

Bex and her husband moved to Vermont in 2017. With five children, their initial goal was to find a rental big enough for the family, but after a few months, they bought a lot and built their Charlotte home.

Bex’s grandmother is from Charlotte and the Holmes Bridge is named after that branch of the family.

“We love working on our little homestead,” Bex said. “I love having the space and being able to homeschool my kids.”

In all, Bex’s business has six full-time employees and works with 40 different contractors including lesson writers, voice artists, website developers and trainers. Ninety percent are either current or former language teachers.

Bex said students taught with The Comprehensible Classroom approach outperform those who have been taught with a grammar-based approach. She believes the more important measurement is the one showing that students are staying in language classes longer.

“Before, students would get low grades and have limited belief in themselves,” she said, “so having them stay with language learning longer is the best success.”