Teaching

Philosophy

My teaching philosophy stems from what I have learned from teachers that I

have assisted as well as ideas that I have come across while teaching my own
Spanish classes. My first year as a teachers assistant in the Masters of Arts in the
Teaching of Languages (MATL) at the University of Southern Mississippi opened my
eyes, not only to effective ways to teach Spanish but also to the language itself.
When you are teaching an L2, even though you are fluent and have been speaking it
for 20 years, as is the case for me, there is always something new to learn. I was
astonished at how much I had to learn about this language I had been speaking
fluently for so long. And the teachers that I assisted, Dr. Laura Guglani, Luis Baez
and Juan Loiza, who all had very distinctive teaching styles, taught me so much and I
will be forever grateful.

What I want my students to leave my class with that last day after they finish

their final exam is not only more of an ability to speak Spanish, but also more
importantly, the desire to continue learning it. Honestly, we all know that after a
semester of beginning Spanish, most, if not all of our students will not speak fluent
Spanish. However, if they leave my class with the desire to continue studying and
learning Spanish, well then, I have done my job. Of course I also want them to learn
as much Spanish as possible but my focus is on instilling in them enough of a
curiosity, maybe even a love of the language and the culture of the people who speak
it, to want to continue studying it.

The way that I go about doing this is by making my class fun as well as

educational. I truly believe in Krashens input hypothesis that requires students

to receive comprehensible input in order to acquire an L2. Comprehensible input is

the TL that the learner would not be able to produce but can still understand.
Before I was a FL teacher, I was a student and I remember understanding everything
that was being said to me and barely being able to respond. Therefore, the
hypothesis definitely has merit in my book. I try to provide my students with as
much comprehensible input each class period.

I begin my classes by letting the students watch a Spanish music video of

Latino singers. Famous ones like Enrique Iglesias and Shakira, and others like Carlos
Vives or Juan Luis Gabriel who most of them are not familiar with. This gets them
in a good mood and inspires them to try to recognize some of the lyrics and it also
introduces them to the Latino culture. Throughout the class, I focus on
communicative activities and games that promote collaborative learning and I have
the students work in small groups to practice speaking in Spanish. I also believe
that students acquire the language by using it rather than by only studying it,
therefore I like to use interactive language teaching so that they can interact directly
with the language. I support Vygostkys theory of scaffolding in the students zone
of proximal development. A students ZPD is what he or she can do in collaboration
today that he or she will be able to do alone tomorrow or in the near future. By
working in groups, my more advanced students can assist those that need more
explanation of the concept we are learning.

I tend to stay in the target language about 85% of the time, therefore I use

many gestures, pictures, TPR and so much humor to communicate in Spanish with
my students. I also incorporate music into the class when they are working on

writing activities. For those, I use soft Latino music from musicians like Silvio
Rodriguez and Laura Pausini. I use it so that the room is not so quiet and also as a
timer. Once one or two songs have played, we go over the exercise.

I have a student who, after taking my Spanish 201 and 202 classes, declared

to me that before he took my class, he hated Spanish. He was actually mad at

Spanish for being too hard. After the first semester he had with me, he rearranged
his schedule so I would be his teacher again. By the end of the second semester in
my class, he was determined to become fluent in Spanish. His curiosity about the
language was piqued and he had Spanish fever, so-to-speak. He made some
friends on-line through a Spanish/English chat site and emails me every once in
awhile in Spanish. We have a Spanish-chat session every Thursday at the university
where I am a graduate assistant and he has expressed interest in becoming part of
that. I love the fact that he did a complete turnaround in his desire to learn Spanish
and that I had something to do with that.

The skills that I want my students to achieve are the following. I want them

to overcome shyness and try to speak, even if they make a mistake. Many times it is
correcting our mistakes that makes us remember the correct answers and helps us
speak better, so in my book, making a mistake is not a problem. I want them to
come to an understanding that there is a whole world out there that they have yet to
discover and by learning Spanish (or any foreign language for that matter) and
learning about the cultures of the people who speak Spanish, they will come to view
issues from a different perspective. They will come to understand why Latinos do
the things they do, wear the clothes they wear, sing the way they sing, clean the way

the clean and so on. They will realize that learning Spanish is not only practical and
will help them when looking for a job, but it also will enrich their lives and make it
more interesting.