I am a latin american girl who was born and raised in Springdale, AR but my parents are from El Salvador. I am the oldest out of four kids and I am also a first generation college student. Being the oldest has not been a challenge because I always want to be an example for my siblings. There are days where I do not feel the motivation and get overwhelmed because of all of the assignments I have to complete. Even through the hardships, I keep pushing myself to make them proud. I graduated from Springdale High School in 2019 and I am now pursuing a degree in Bachelors of Arts in Teaching, specifically Spanish Education, at the University of Arkansas. My desire to teach has come from one of my high school teachers. Her Spanish class was my favorite because she was able to create fun and interactive lessons. I was inspired by her care for her students and the passion she had for the language. During my time as a student at the University of Arkansas, I have had the opportunity to create engaging lessons while applying different teaching methods like projects, group work, and creating games. A challenge that I would like to help solve in my future classroom is that students should be ashamed of speaking Spanish. As a result of my interest in this challenge, I have had an opportunity to serve community service hours with the Sin Limites Program and discovered that I really enjoy helping Spanish heritage speakers develop their fluency in the Spanish language. While volunteering at Walker Elementary after school program, I would mentor the students and help them with their Spanish. While proving to them that knowing a second language is beneficial while having a good time and preparing fun activities for them. I believe that my ability to be a coach has allowed me to do this successfully because I like for individuals to reach their potential and prepare them to be future leaders. All in all, my goal after I graduate is to teach Spanish in Arkansas at the secondary level. As a future teacher I want to push students to do their best and help them find what they are best at, I hope to inspire students to step up and be a leader in a group or lead by example for anything. Ensuring that I create meaningful experiences for my students is really important to me so they can remember me/my class and implement what I teach them into their lives.
