Author Archives: egreenwald

Teaching Spanish as a World Language

For this blog post, I will talk about how the Secondary Teacher Education Preparation (STEP) Program for Spanish works. I talk about my own experience with the program and also offer some tips for making the most out of it.

When I first entered UMass, I knew I wanted to teach Spanish, but I had a hard time finding the resources to get information about the Secondary Teacher Education Preparation (STEP) Program for undergraduates. On the College of Education website, most of the STEP material is geared toward graduate students, even though, with careful planning, undergraduates can also leave UMass with an initial licensure to teach in disciplines such as mathematics, biology, Spanish, English, and many more. My first step was getting in contact with the Spanish program director in charge of the licensure, in this case, Carole Cloutier. Continue reading →

The Power of Internships: Connecting Spanish to Internship Experiences

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I write this blog post as I finish my time as a Spanish major at UMass Amherst. Although I am sad that my time here is coming to an end, I can look positively on my experiences I have had, both at UMass and within the Spanish department. Although I have not had the study abroad experience, I can speak to some of the internship opportunities I have had during my time as a Spanish major. While I think that studying abroad is an amazing opportunity, I also think that internships can also have an impact on students, regardless of what they study. My hope of this blog post is to show that someone studying Spanish can have meaningful internships in which they use what they learned during their career as a Spanish major. I use two of my own internship experiences, one in Washington, D.C. and one in Amherst, MA, to show how internships can bring about meaningful connections with the Spanish major and how someone can complete a wide range of internships. Continue reading →

From Study Abroad to Research: The Gradual Shift

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For a while I have known that I wanted to be a teacher, but I always struggled with which subject I would teach. After taking Spanish in middle and high school and going on a trip to Spain my junior year of high school, I knew that I wanted to pursue the Spanish language and culture more in depth. When I first came to the University of Massachusetts it was assumed that I would study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country. I mean, if I wanted to teach Spanish to others, I should have studied in a Spanish-speaking country. I should speak with natives and I should surround myself with their culture. At the beginning of my time at UMASS I wanted to study for a semester in Spain, then I decided I wanted to study for an entire academic year. However, something changed as I continued my career at UMASS. As I began to take the required education courses in order to get my license to teach, I realized that I wanted to be more on the education side of things. I became fascinated with research and how education could be used for liberation. I saw the social justice side of education as a highly important aspect of our society, and I wanted to continue to explore it. Continue reading →