LEARN TO TEACH AND TEACH TO LEARN
Education has been a very important factor in my life because my parents and most of my family members did not have the opportunity to go beyond their elementary school. Spanish is my first language, and after having an amazing Spanish teacher in high school, I decided that I wanted to choose Spanish as my major. Since I was a child I have had a tendency to help and share what I know with others. Due to the fact that I live in a country that has English as its main language, I have had experiences where I have to translate to a stranger and that's the beauty of knowing two languages.
From this major I have learned different and important aspects of our culture, as well as a second culture. I expanded my knowledge and developed new skills in Spanish. In the language proficiency aspect, I improve my interpersonal, interpretive and presentational communication. While in linguistics, I learned the grammatical structure of English and Spanish and how they connect. In literature, I learned how to analyze literary pieces of the Spanish-speaking world and important historical events of Latin America history. In the second culture section, I was able to learn about African narratives and made connections to them. For cultural internalization and language immersion I was able to help a minority group like English Learners using my linguistic and literary skills. In the research and technology sector I gained new skills on how to develop a well organized research project. I could say that even though some classes challenged me more than others, I did not give up on my goal to finish with my Spanish major. I relied on my strength to continue even when things were difficult.
I’m proud of all the work I did to fulfill each of the six major learning outcomes (MLO) because it made me grow not just academically, but professionally and personally. All the classes required presentations, some in English and some in Spanish, which helped me develop my communication skills and pushed me out of my comfort zone, especially when speaking in front of the class in English. My service learning experience was very significant because I was able to notice that schools need more bilingual teachers and gave me the confidence that my decision of wanting to be a future educator had been a good one. I’m also very grateful for all my professors who helped me in this journey, because thanks to their teaching, I was able to gain and improve my knowledge.
Overall, as my mom has always said, we never stop learning and there is always something new to learn. In the future, as I continue to further my education, I want to expand my cultural knowledge of another culture because there are so many stereotypes that are created without even knowing the history. I want to be a Spanish teacher so I want to educate myself on the diversity of the population in order to know how to include everyone in my classes and create a friendly environment. Another area that I feel I need to improve even more is my public speaking because I still get nervous and that make me forget what I had already planned to say. In conclusion, I want to be a great Spanish teacher with all the neccesary knowledge and to give the best advices to my future students
Education has been a very important factor in my life because my parents and most of my family members did not have the opportunity to go beyond their elementary school. Spanish is my first language, and after having an amazing Spanish teacher in high school, I decided that I wanted to choose Spanish as my major. Since I was a child I have had a tendency to help and share what I know with others. Due to the fact that I live in a country that has English as its main language, I have had experiences where I have to translate to a stranger and that's the beauty of knowing two languages.
From this major I have learned different and important aspects of our culture, as well as a second culture. I expanded my knowledge and developed new skills in Spanish. In the language proficiency aspect, I improve my interpersonal, interpretive and presentational communication. While in linguistics, I learned the grammatical structure of English and Spanish and how they connect. In literature, I learned how to analyze literary pieces of the Spanish-speaking world and important historical events of Latin America history. In the second culture section, I was able to learn about African narratives and made connections to them. For cultural internalization and language immersion I was able to help a minority group like English Learners using my linguistic and literary skills. In the research and technology sector I gained new skills on how to develop a well organized research project. I could say that even though some classes challenged me more than others, I did not give up on my goal to finish with my Spanish major. I relied on my strength to continue even when things were difficult.
I’m proud of all the work I did to fulfill each of the six major learning outcomes (MLO) because it made me grow not just academically, but professionally and personally. All the classes required presentations, some in English and some in Spanish, which helped me develop my communication skills and pushed me out of my comfort zone, especially when speaking in front of the class in English. My service learning experience was very significant because I was able to notice that schools need more bilingual teachers and gave me the confidence that my decision of wanting to be a future educator had been a good one. I’m also very grateful for all my professors who helped me in this journey, because thanks to their teaching, I was able to gain and improve my knowledge.
Overall, as my mom has always said, we never stop learning and there is always something new to learn. In the future, as I continue to further my education, I want to expand my cultural knowledge of another culture because there are so many stereotypes that are created without even knowing the history. I want to be a Spanish teacher so I want to educate myself on the diversity of the population in order to know how to include everyone in my classes and create a friendly environment. Another area that I feel I need to improve even more is my public speaking because I still get nervous and that make me forget what I had already planned to say. In conclusion, I want to be a great Spanish teacher with all the neccesary knowledge and to give the best advices to my future students