Hi all! Below is an academic report from Julia Fisher, New River Academy’s spanish teacher. I asked her to provide the report for this week because I’ve noticed a lot of laughter coming from her classes lately. Enjoy! –Melina

Academic Report::Spanish

Keenerville on the Ottawa is one of the best places we have had for classes. There are plenty of rooms, tables, and chairs so that each class has space to make its own unique classroom. We also have Internet, so students and teachers are able to research freely.

I am glad to write the academic report this week because I have been having some of the best Spanish classes of the quarter here in Canada. My Spanish II Class has finished the textbook, so we are free to have creative and fun lessons reviewing what they have learned throughout the quarter. My favorite class was earlier this week when the students and I translated a song that they often sing, “Heat of the Moment” by Asia. We translated the first half of the song and the chorus, and in the last few moments, sang it to a student who was feeling under the weather. He perked right up and the students and I were laughing and smiling for the remainder of the day.

In Spanish III, we have worked on simple translation, reading comprehension, and pronunciation. We are now polishing up some grammatical concepts in preparation for the final exam. I know that the students’ favorite class was when we played Spanish Scrabble. I believe that they were having so much fun that they forgot that they were still learning. It was a good way to reward them for working hard.

Advanced Spanish V has been awesome because we are studying Latin American Authors, which is what my background is in. We are studying works by award-winning authors such as Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, and Jorge Luis Borges. These authors are some of the main contributors to the literary Boom in Latin American in the mid-twentieth century. My students have done a wonderful job comprehending and analyzing these complex, layered short stories and poems. They will surely have the upper hand when they continue their Spanish studies at the college level.

Hard work is paying off and things are moving right along. Congratulations to all my Spanish students, I feel that they have learned so much by having such small classes in which I can cater the curriculum to meet their individual needs.

–Julia Fisher