Silvia Mascaró (aka @AprendeInglesSila on facebook and Instagram), one of Spain's most prominent and influential learn-English influencers, began to appear in her videos wearing a bandanna on her Facebook and Instagram profiles in the second quarter of 2019. Sometime in May Silvia reported in a video that she had been diagnosed with cancer and that there were five malignant tumours in her body, including her lungs.
On 13th June 2019, Silvia reported that the day before she had had her first round of chemotherapy after being diagnosed some time ago with the rare form of cancer, leiomyosarcoma, which affects smooth muscle tissue.
Due to the nature of leiomyosarcoma, chemotherapy is not normally effective at treating this form of cancer, and that it is only used to treat other tumours which have spread to other parts of the body.
After entering the later stages of her illness, Silvia stated that she wouldn't continue to make posts about learning English across her social media channels but she has continued to upload videos and helpful information for her loyal fans in Spain who want to learn English. She has also created a separate Instagram account dedicated solely to her fight with cancer.
Across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, Silvia has over 200,000 followers and creates content for people who want to learn English but does it in a 'manera diferente de aprende ingles', claims Silvia, which is believed to focus on specific problems Spanish native speakers experience while trying to learn English.
Among popular social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, there are many influencers who have created their own channels dedicated to helping people learn English. Superholly, who has 2.8 million subscribers also uploaded some videos to her Instagram profile at the beginning of July about her struggle with illness.