Meet Eric Bonilla, Spanish Content Analyst at Goalbook
There are a couple of things Eric always knew about himself: one is that he loves languages, and two is that he knew he wanted to work in education. To nurture his love for languages, Eric studied Italian, French, and Chinese in college. He loved learning about the languages themselves, the grammar rules, and the pronunciations. Eric worked as a paraprofessional for two years before graduating from college and getting his license to teach bilingual education, which he did for six years.
Now Eric works at Goalbook as a Spanish Content Analyst, helping to not just translate but transcreate Goalbook Toolkit’s resources into Spanish. In this Q&A, Eric shares how his love for languages and education work together to support Goalbook’s mission to empower educators to transform instruction so ALL students succeed.
1. What inspired you to go into education?
I’ve always loved school and wanted to work in a school, but I had two teachers who inspired me to go into teaching.
One was my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Almada. I was her teacher’s assistant. She would give me great responsibilities like helping to check my peer’s homework and grade assignments (I would check answers against an answer key). She trusted me to do the work, and I enjoyed that.
The other teacher who inspired me was my 9th grade Geography teacher, Mr. Schrant. His classroom was pretty traditional, with individual desks lined up and students sitting in alphabetical order. He was very strict, but I learned a great deal of discipline from him. He taught me how to take notes from a book and annotate. The structure helped me learn and sparked a love of geography.
“I could see the advocacy efforts of Goalbook to reach more teachers who are able to use the product to reach more students.”
2. What attracted you to Goalbook’s mission?
Two things: the job post itself and the phrase “ALL students succeed” in Goalbook’s mission.
The job post specifically asked for someone who is biliterate in Spanish. Many companies look for bilingual individuals, but I could tell Goalbook was looking for someone with a deeper understanding of both English and Spanish. Being biliterate means having an understanding of the nuances of language, not just in translation, but in transcreation.
To me, being bilingual means you can speak and understand two languages. Whereas being biliterate covers the four domains of language: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. This means you have a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities of both languages. It’s not just knowing Spanish and English, but knowing about Spanish and English.
The other thing that attracted me was the phrase “ALL students succeed.” With this specific phrase, I could see the advocacy efforts of Goalbook to reach more teachers who are able to use the product to reach more students. The phrase connects with how I advocate for bilingual students.
3. What does it mean to be a Content Analyst at Goalbook?
A Content Analyst here is like a project manager. I lead different projects and come up with plans to execute them. I also hire part-time contributors to complete tasks for these projects.
In other words, I take big picture projects and break them down into smaller tasks that both contributors and I, as an analyst, complete.
“My team and I transcreate assessments into Spanish; we don’t simply translate the assessments.”
4. In your eyes, how does your work support Goalbook’s mission?
I think my work fits very well with two aspects of our mission statement: “empower educators to transform instruction” and “all students succeed.”
By providing resources for bilingual special education educators, especially assessments for progress monitoring, we’re targeting a real pain point for educators across the country. My team and I transcreate assessments into Spanish; we don’t simply translate the assessments. We take into account who our audience is, the Spanish complexity after translation, and the cultural responsiveness in assessment topics. We want to ensure our Spanish assessments support educators by alleviating finding and creating progress monitoring assessments and resources in Spanish.
We also want ALL students to be able to connect with the passages and word problems. To do this, sometimes we change the topic of an assessment if the original one is not culturally relevant for the audience.
“We also want ALL students to be able to connect with the passages and word problems.”
5. What experiences from your teaching days have helped you in your role as a Content Analyst at Goalbook?
Backwards planning has helped a lot in how I think about an end goal, break it down into smaller tasks, craft a plan, and then calendar those tasks. Working backwards has really helped me in determining how to lead specific projects.
Having meeting deadlines at school for things like report cards and parent/teacher conferences has also helped me with allocating time for my tasks to meet deadlines.
Teachers are learners and collaborators, and both of those have been important in my role. I’ve learned along the way, and asking for others’ opinions, feedback, and input to see what can improve has been valuable for me.
6. In your current role, when do you most feel your work is contributing to improve the education system? How do you measure your impact on the education system? How do you know that your work is contributing?
As a bilingual educator, I was always limited to what quality resources I could find online. There is a limited amount of quality resources available in Spanish for bilingual students, and specifically for bilingual special education students. I think my team’s work speaks to this need, and we want to continue trying our best to fill this gap for bilingual special education teachers.
We have contributors working on assessments; they’re not AI-generated or just run through a translator. We always have someone looking at what we create. I try to hire bilingual educators to make sure they have the eye and experience in seeing quality vs. not quality assessments. By having transcreated passages and assessments, we are improving the quality of what bilingual educators can find over just using Google Translate.
“Goalbook has supported me with having a better work-life balance.”
7. What are one or two things you love here?
When I was teaching, I was working late nights and on weekends. Goalbook has supported me with having a better work-life balance. This has helped me be able to enjoy more things and not be so drained at the end of the day. I’m able to have more time for my family.
I also love the flexibility and being able to take time off that doesn’t have to be tied to school breaks. I just have to make sure my responsibilities are met and I have everything set up so I can take that time off.
8. What’s your favorite memory during your time at Goalbook?
During my onboarding, I went with some other Content team members to a Peruvian restaurant near our headquarters in San Mateo, California. The Peruvian ceviche was the best.
It was a nice experience just being with colleagues. We sat outside, had great weather, and great conversation.
9. What are you watching and reading right now?
I’m reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I’m really into futuristic science fiction novels with alternate universes and realities.
I’m rewatching Leftovers on HBO. It’s about one day 140 million people vanished, and the people remaining don’t understand what happened and are dealing with the aftermath.
10. Early bird or night owl?
Early bird; I’ve always been an early bird. I can’t stay up past 9:30 or 10:00 pm.
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