Supporting teachers in their Spanish language teaching

The school curriculum encourages primary and intermediate teachers to teach foreign languages in their classroom, however the necessary training is not offered. For teachers already teaching Spanish, there are currently no professional development opportunities for them to strengthen their skills. With our partners at Tui Tuia | Learning Circle we are offering a programme designed for teachers at primary/intermediate and lower secondary school level who wish to develop or enhance a Spanish language programme.

The programme consists of workshops run by facilitators at Tui Tuia, in-school visits, resource sharing, and online workshops to support the learning. Teachers who do not speak Spanish are also offered a grant to support their language growth. In 2022, the programme will be running for three semesters with one cluster of teachers in Auckland and one in Wellington.

“I think the biggest change in me has to be how it has eased my nerve on being a non-native Spanish teacher in the classroom. I am not new to language teaching and most of the times I am confident in what I am doing. But in my Spanish class, I had always felt a bit nervous about having to teach the students about a culture that I myself am not very clear about. This programme has reassured me that there were many ways of bringing cultures into a classroom and making it educational and fun. I don’t necessarily have to be an expert in everything and I can always get support if I need any. I also appreciate the many of the brilliant workshops you organised for us this year. The task based learning workshop was a very good reminder of the importance of making tasks meaningful in the classroom. The multiple resources that you shared with us are invaluable and I will make sure that I pass it on to the members in the department so that all of us can benefit from them.” – 2020 participant