Cinthya Trueba and CCLS Houston’s journey from classes at an apartment kitchen table to offices overlooking the city

To celebrate CCLS Houston's 14th anniversary, we sat down with CEO & President Cinthya Trueba to hear about CCLS Houston's history and the plans for the company's future. Cinthya's two-fisted, spirited approach to business ensured CCLS Houston's success from the beginning and will infuse into the company's growth in the next decade.

Why did you start CCLS Houston? What problems did its opening solve, and what beliefs and values were CCLS Houston founded on?

I needed a fresh start. In 2008, I took the long drive-up US 59 from McAllen to Houston, Texas, where I decided to open a language school. Based on my background in teaching the Spanish language, I needed this school to begin my new journey personally and professionally. After arriving in Houston, I decided that CCLS was the right franchise to purchase for the Houston metropolitan community.

Through good times and bad, the school has grown, and one key-value has emerged – to ensure that fun is a big part of the learning process. Fun, in my estimation, is a crucial element of learning a language. Language skills are a serious endeavor because they require a lot of memorization – no way around it. Making that process of committing vocabulary, verbs, and the other critical components of language to a student's memory can be accomplished in a fun, dynamic, and interactive environment. The words become phrases, phrases become sentences, and a new language is learned in the end.

What was CCLS Houston like when you first started?

I formed the company and began teaching classes from the kitchen table of my one-bedroom apartment, creating a curriculum and methodology that ensure the student's success in learning a foreign language. In 2011, I had earned enough to re-invest my earnings and expand the school into a basement suite of offices at the school's current location.

What is your favorite part of CCLS Houston?

To watch this transformation with my students, which I get to see many times, is something I never get tired of. My students acquire joy from knowing a new language. As I see it, when a student learns a new language, they gain a new soul.

What is CCLS Houston like today?

In 2020, CCLS Houston expanded into spacious new classrooms and offices on the 5th floor of the facility. Not long after this business expansion, disaster struck with the COVID-19 pandemic. This did not stop me. In the face of lockdowns and the loss of in-person classes and teachers to instruct them, Mana Kashuk, executive director of CCLS, and I got creative! CCLS Houston launched online courses, which have matured and are doing very well. It sustained the growing business through the worst of the pandemic, and now is a part of CCLS Houston's successful comeback and growth in 2021.

What do you see for CCLS Houston Future?

For CCLS Houston, going into its 14-year of operation, the horizon holds promise. I plan to add international students' sponsorship to the US and the school, which will bring further expansion and growth.

If you are interested in CCLS Houston or learning Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, or perfecting the English language, please feel free to reach out today! CCLS Houston specializes in a unique and easy experience to language learning, with different courses to ensure fluency.