2025 Hall of Fame Nominee
William Penn Charter School
Philadelphia, PA
Learning a language brings abundant value to all learners, from the economic perspectives to the student’s character. More importantly, developing culturally competent learners by emphasizing real-life language application sparks curiosity in students, forming lifelong learners who will go to college craving more. This will lead students to apply to language/cultural prestigious programs such as the Study of Critical Languages, the Fulbright program, and other programs offered by the U.S. Government and universities, where the cultural component plays an important role. Culturally competent students are tolerant, have empathy, and understand that achieving mutual understanding is important.
It all starts in our classrooms and communities by creating experiences that spark curiosity in our students, emphasizing real-life language application to explore the culture, and to understand the current pressing issues of the communities where the studied language is spoken. For example, one of my classes explored and researched the current situation in Nicaragua. Currently, the Nicaraguan government has confiscated the Jesuit University UCA and has been persecuting the Catholic church and journalists for several years, ultimately suppressing the freedom of expression and religion of its citizens. Several members of the church and the media have been expelled from the country, and several others have been prosecuted and assassinated for raising their voice against the government. Students prepared for a roundtable style discussion on this pressing topic, where they explored and proposed different solutions to the situation in Nicaragua. They collaborated using Spanish to communicate and to examine their many solutions and advantages and disadvantages. One of the groups proposed and led a fundraiser via the Jesuit Network to support those students from the UCA of Nicaragua that needed to emigrate to El Salvador to continue their undergraduate studies. It was rewarding for the students to know that they were already impacting the lives of Nicaraguans by leading the fundraising initiative, which was one of their proposed solutions. In this activity, students connected with the community by: interviewing Jesuits, who know firsthand about this issue; visiting and interviewing the Organization of American States members, where they advocated for Nicaragua; and presenting their findings and solutions to the school community at Sheehy Theater, all in Spanish. The problem-solving roundtable activity is done every year with the mission of exploring - using the Spanish language - current pressing issues in the region while developing career readiness skills (i.e. problem solving). Similarly, I founded the Spanish Speech and Debate program, which aims to achieve a similar mission and vision at Gonzaga College High School.
Ultimately, developing language programs that emphasize real-life language applications, connect with the community, and have students in the center of problem solving while developing their career readiness skills, including communication, creativity, collaboration, and creativity have a long-lasting impact on learners. Hands-on, authentic and contextual experiences such as the “The Spanish Problem Solving”, the “Spanish Speech and Debate,” are a few examples of programs that make learning a language and culture valuable. Learning a language not only benefits our students to be more competitive in the 21st century, but also helps them in becoming lifelong learners and takes their cultural and language learning experiences to the next level.