Printing off 5 copies of my
Final Master's Project: €36,52
Making 1 copy on CD: €1,00
Seeing the smile on my face just before handing it in.... PRICELESS!!!
YES!!! It's true!!! After 10 months of rigorous study at the University of Salamanca in the Master's Program "Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language", I have officially handed in my last project! It is almost hard to believe because the time seems to have just flown by this year. Back at the beginning of the year, I remember doubting if I was even going to be able to pull it all off-- with all of the classes being in Spanish and all of the papers having to be written in Spanish, I was very unsure... Thankfully, I have proven myself wrong and I have even done WELL in my courses! Although it's not the 3.99 GPA that I am used to from my undergraduate studies at Nazareth College, all of my grades were from 8.0 to 9.5 (Spain Universities do not follow the 4.0 grading scale, instead they use 0-10) and I couldn't be happier!! Studying in this program has been an amazing experience. I feel as though I am SO much more prepared to be a Spanish teacher now and I also feel lucky that my learning experience has had "un toque internacional" (an international touch). As I have mentioned before, my classmates were from all over the world (North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia) and that allowed for some great exchanges of opinions and ideas about teaching Spanish as a foreign language.
One of the most important things that I have learned this year is that foreign language teachers in the United States do something that is almost unheard of in other countries: speak in the the native language of the students (in our case, English) in order to teach the 2nd language. I quickly learned how much that is looked down upon in other countries. At first I tried to defend my position, thinking that at the lower levels, it was necessary to speak in the native language of the students, because how else would they understand? However, now I have a completely different opinion. When I get back, it is my goal to have a classroom in which ONLY Spanish is spoken because my studies have proven to me that it is the best way for the students to learn. If you still don't believe me, listen to this:
I just saw on TV that Anthony Orza (a Spanish teacher in Rhinebeck, NY near Hudson Valley) was awarded "el Orden del Mérito Civil", one of the highest honors in Spain, for his achievements in teaching Spanish in NYS for the past 40 years. Orza claims that one of his best practices as a teacher is not allowing the students to speak a word of English once they enter the classroom. Hearing his success story inspires me and makes me even more excited to return to Rochester and start teaching again. Check out the link below to read more about the story:
Here are a few more pictures from my proud day :)
