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Natalie Guevara

Mrs.Cunningham

English lit

15 March 2019

Blog 4

My topic was teaching an 8 year old a new language, which was spanish. Starting this

process I was hoping to address the significance of understanding another language, the

importance of communication is often overlooked, but with learning a foreign language,

communication skills grow stronger and I think that’s important. I identified a possible solution

would be to try and teach a child spanish through a fun way with different activities so that the

child would stay intrigued and hopefully want to continue learning spanish after the process. I

hoped to learn what methods and ways were most effective in teaching a kid spanish. In the

beginning of the process I first had Isabelle download a spanish storytelling app for kids where

she’d listen to a story every night before she went to sleep so that she could get comfortable with

the pronunciation and sounds of spanish. I thought a big obstacle I was going to encounter would

be that Isabelle wouldn’t want to learn and would rather be playing, however surprisingly she

was really interested in learning spanish and always tried her hardest to pay attention and

understand. The steps I took during this process was to first make sure she was using the spanish

app, then I taught her the alphabet, then the numbers up to 20, I also taught her basic animals

where we’d do different activities such as draw the animals in chalk then spell them out in

spanish, I also taught her fruits and vegetables and taught her basic household items by going
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around the house and labeling them. And the final step was giving her a multiple choice answer

test at the end. Through this process i accomplished teaching a child some of the basics to

spanish and teaching her the importance of communication skills. I learned with the topic I chose

it takes a lot of time for somebody just to get the feeling for a new language and with teaching a

kid there needs to be a lot of reassurance so that they don’t feel discouraged if they don’t get the

hang of something. Through this process I learned that I enjoy teaching and helping others try

and accomplish what they want to excel at. I’m particularly proud of how hard Isabelle was

focused and determined to learn a new language and that she loved it and trusted me in teaching

her. I don't really wish I did anything differently other then maybe spending a little more time

teaching her the alphabet. I think I was able to make a small impact on the importance of another

language by teaching Isabelle because she wants to speak spanish all the time now and she’s

even starting to try and teach her younger siblings some of the things she knows. If I had more

time I’d take this further by teaching her more than just the basics and start giving her more in

depth lessons and if I could I would start teaching more children at different age groups. If I

could give healthy advice to an incoming senior it would be to do something they’re passionate

about so that this process wouldn't necessarily feel like a project and they would enjoy what

they’re working on.