Hello! My name is Courtney, and I am a high school Spanish teacher. I live in Pennsylvania with my loving husband and our adorable mini goldendoodle, Luna. I have been teaching since 2016, and I am excited to bring my classroom experience to you.
I have taught a variety of levels from pre-school through Spanish 4 Honors at public schools in New Jersey. In 2021, I joined a wonderful team of online world language teachers at the World of Learning Institute. All my lessons are based on the communicative approach. Our school does not have textbooks, so all of my materials are hand-made with help from my wonderful colleagues!
One of the best parts about being a teacher is collaborating with other teachers. With my time in the classroom, I realized a great need for practical, authentic tasks and activities for Spanish teachers. With this blog, I will share my classroom ideas and resources with you, and I hope you will share yours with me.
In high school, I had my first travel experience to Costa Rica with our Spanish Club. We participated in an EF tour across the country, visiting coffee plantations, volcanoes, hot springs, ziplining, and more! It was an incredible first experience in a Spanish-speaking country!
In July 2017, my husband and I went on the trip of a lifetime to Peru! Ever since I was little, I dreamed of going to Machu Picchu. We traveled to Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu. Hiking the mountains, meeting the llamas, eating the local cuisine, and seeing the beauty this country has to offer was a trip I will never forget.
In 2018 and 2019, I was fortunate enough to travel to Guatemala with my Catholic Church – Queenship of Mary. I serve as a translator on our Guatemala Partnership committee, through which we have a relationship with a small parish in Guatemala. We have developed a solidarity lending program, supporting small business owners through faith, fellowship, and solidarity.
I graduated with a BA in Arts Administration and Minor in Spanish from Rider University. I originally planned on working in the arts education field, but soon realized how much I missed Spanish and being in a classroom. As I was working in the arts, I continued to study Spanish online. I went back for an Alternate Route education program to fulfill the education requirements.
I received my MA in Foreign Language Teaching from Michigan State University, where I took courses such as Foreign Language pedagogy, methods, and assessment, second language acquisition, and Teaching Reading in a FL Classroom, among many others. I presented at ACTFL 2019 with my classmates on the topic of “Making Authentic Texts Comprehensible with Corpus Tools.” As my capstone project, I designed an online course for translators of the Guatemala Partnership program that I am involved in.
What do your lesson plans look like for the last few weeks of the school year? With your end of year activities, are you trying
Research projects can be done at any point of the school year. They make great sub plans, independent work, group projects, final projects, and more.
Do you struggle to find authentic resources in the target language? Finding resources, especially for novice level students can be challenging. One of my favorite
