SU FAMILIA
Ms. Sánchez was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Her father is her pride. He was an electrical engineer and chair of the Electrical Engineering Department at the "Universidad Politécnica" in San Juan. He passed away in 1998. Her mother is a house wife and an interior designer. Ms. Sánchez has a brother and two sisters who live in Puerto Rico and Italy. Her sister Ive is a chemist and an environmental lawyer. Her brother Angel is an engineer and her sister Maria is an accountant living in Rome.
SU EDUCACION
After attending a private high school in Puerto Rico, Ms. Sanchez attended the University of Puerto Rico where she received a Bachelors Degree of Arts in Communications. Right after graduating from college she began working as a reporter for the Puerto Rican Commonwealth's House of Representatives.
Two years later, she moved to Oregon and began attending Portland State University where she received a Master Degree in Foreign Language. She began her teaching career while working on her Master. As a GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant) she taught Spanish I at Portland State University and assisted with the field testing of a new textbook and Spanish program that was being developed by her professors at the school.
SU CARRERA
After graduating from Portland State, she began working for Portland Community College as an adjunct Spanish Instructor. She has also worked as a Spanish Instructor at Linfield College in Mc Minnville, Clark College in Vancouver and University of Portland.
In 1999 she began working at the high school level. She taught at Oregon City High School for four years before coming to LOH. In Oregon City she was recognized as teacher of the month in her first semester of teaching. This recognition came from students who selected her for the award during the month of December. She was also a co-advisor for the Latino Club and a member of the smaller learning communities committee and the site council.
SU TIEMPO LIBRE
On her free time, she enjoys spending time with her three daughters, Melanie,17, Camille, 14, Sophia,10 and Jacob, 4. She also enjoys traveling and getting together with friends.
SUS VIAJES
Ms. Sanchez has visited many places in the Caribbean, Spain and Mexico. Still, her favorite place in the world is Rincon, a surfing beach town on the west side of the island of Puerto Rico. Someday she hopes to retire and live in Rincon.
SU FILOSOFIA
I
like to see my Second Language class as a prolonged conversation. The
conversation begins in my classroom on day one, and it does not stop until the
end of the year. “How can we learn Spanish if we do not understand the
language and she is speaking it all the time?” students often complain at the
beginning of the term. I believe
that students need to be re-trained. Techniques that maximize *comprehensible
input will help them understand a new language.
First, they need to be trained to use their general knowledge to understand the new language. For example, I point out to them that if I say, “Me llamo Teresa,” maybe you did not understand what “me llamo” meant, but you know that Teresa is a name. Next, I ask them to guess the meaning of the sentence. Of course all students guess right!
The second technique that I try to emphasize is the recognition of *cognates. I begin my Spanish I class by dictating a long list of cognates. The Spanish teacher can take advantage of cognates to maintain authentic conversation in the classroom and students will begin gaining confidence as they notice how much they can understand.
The third technique that helps students make associations in the Spanish classroom is the use of pictures. Pictures allow the Spanish Teacher to introduce new vocabulary to the class without the need of translation. I believe maintaining the conversation in Spanish will help students’ pronunciation tremendously. Also, structures become easier to imitate and eventually acquire when using the target language in class.
The fourth technique that I try to use in my Spanish class is presenting the language in a specific context. For example, I do not teach my students the conjugation of the regular present tense, but I teach them how to talk about their daily routine. Of course I teach the forms they need to talk about their daily routine. But class time is used to practice them in conversation rather than practicing the forms out of context.
Finally, they need to become aware that “la práctica hace la perfección” (cognates!) They need to understand that they are going to hear and repeat things over and over again, and they are going to reuse the vocabulary learned. We do not forget about what we learned in chapter one, we build onto it. Hopefully, they will get enough exposure to the Spanish vocabulary and structures in order for them to *acquire the Spanish language.
By the end of the year, students have worked hard, because acquiring a foreign language is not any easier than learning any other subject. Their proficiency and confidence level have grown, and they are now ready and willing to continue building their speaking, listening, writing and reading skills in the Spanish language.
*Comprehensible input- messages that students can understand.
*Cognates- The 'convertible' English to Spanish words are known as cognates, words in both languages which share the same Latin root and which are visibly and often audibly very similar.
*Second Language Acquisition- when students unconsciously gain the vocabulary and structures needed to communicate using a language other than their native language. Students naturally acquire vocabulary and grammatical structures by exposure to the target language rather than by memorizing vocabulary and studying its grammatical structures.