You do not necessarily have to go abroad to practice speaking Spanish. Although, going abroad will help in many ways to practice speaking Spanish. Many can practice Spanish through the use of doing community service volunteering. I was doing some research on that, and I found an organization where there is an opportunity to volunteer in addition to practice speaking Spanish as well as teaching Spanish to others. This organization is called the Spanish American Center in Leominster, MA where there is alot of community service volunteering that happens every year with this organization.

Another way in which I got the opportunity to practice Spanish was that I worked in a restaurant over the summer, and many of my co-workers spoke Spanish, so I had the opportunity to speak in Spanish with them. When speaking Spanish with native speakers of Spanish, I got to investigate their dialect and the pace in which they spoke Spanish. According to dialect, I remember the classes Spanish Phoenetics and Hispanic Linguistics that I had to take here at UMass. These classes taught me alot about Spanish dialect and the way Spanish is spoken in every different Spanish speaking country.

Next, prior to being a Spanish major, there are many job opportunities for after graduating college. One does not necessarily need to stick to a certain job decision when deciding what they want to do with a Spanish major. Prior to being a Spanish major, what I did was minor in Education so that I can have the opportunity to work with elementary school children as well as use Spanish when needed, especially when having to teach at the elementary school level. After doing classroom observations at the elementary school level in addition to the secondary education level, there are times where I wish that Spanish should be offered at all the elementary schools in the districts just like the way it is with middle school and high school. I learned that Spanish is a second common language in the U.S in comparison to English, and I feel as though it would be necessary to include it at the Preschool and Elementary School levels. Plus, I feel as though being a Spanish major and pursuing a minor in another field would make your degree broad for when applying for a job or even grad school.