September 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: Spanish: The Press Democrat: Honduras RPCV Pam Kester-McNees teaches Spanish students can use
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September 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: Spanish: The Press Democrat: Honduras RPCV Pam Kester-McNees teaches Spanish students can use
Honduras RPCV Pam Kester-McNees teaches Spanish students can use
Kester-McNees, who has lived in Latin America, recognizes that some students find the prospect of reading classical literature in Spanish boring. By sending e- mails in Spanish to actual people working in occupations they might find intriguing, she hopes to forge meaningful language and cultural exchange.
Honduras RPCV Pam Kester-McNees teaches Spanish students can use
Teaching Spanish students can use
Casa Grande instructor traveled to Mexico to help on-the-job vocabulary
Friday, September 16, 2005
By JANET PARMER
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Pam Kester-McNees spent much of the summer prepping for a new workplace Spanish course she's teaching at Casa Grande High School.
Kester-McNees traveled with her family to Oaxaca, Mexico, for five weeks, but instead of vacationing, she put in long hours videotaping and photographing Mexicans at work.
To learn Spanish that would be useful on the job in California, Kester-McNees interviewed doctors, nurses, a renowned chef, a bricklayer, a travel agent and an architect.
She also filmed at a botanical garden, contemporary art museum, dentist's office, organic foods company, luxury hotel and a papermaking business.
She asked employees and business owners to explain what a typical work day entails and filmed real-life scenarios.
She'll use the tapes to teach Petaluma teens Spanish that has contemporary relevance.
Kester-McNees, who has lived in Latin America, recognizes that some students find the prospect of reading classical literature in Spanish boring. By sending e- mails in Spanish to actual people working in occupations they might find intriguing, she hopes to forge meaningful language and cultural exchange.
Her goal is to guide students toward being bilingual and biliterate in specific fields.
Casa Grande High is developing "career pathways" related to health care, culinary arts, digital media and environmental science. Kester-McNees' curriculum in the workplace Spanish class is intended to mesh with those programs.
Students who sign up for one of the pathways have opportunities to do job internships in the community, and take high school classes to familiarize them with the requirements to specialize in one of those fields.
As part of the Spanish program, Kester-McNees will have career pathways students learn practical vocabulary and terminology related to the professions that interest them.
If students continue with Spanish and become bilingual, they could have an edge in a competitive job market. Their Spanish skills will become increasingly valu able as California's Latino population grows.
"We cover grammatical concepts but through a different door," she said. "We've read about Diego Rivera or Frida Kahlo and people are tired of that. It's so outside many students' experiences ."
As the program unfolds, Kester-McNees would like to build on relationships she's forged with teachers in Oaxaca to help their students learn English while Casa kids are learning Spanish.
"It's a lot of work to set up a language exchange," she said . "But in trying to get your point across, it will get you to learn language better than doing 5,000 exercises."
When she was in high school, Kester-McNees spent a year as Rotary Club exchange student in Puebla, Mexico. She later served in the Peace Corps in Honduras, where she taught vocational education to children and adults.
She has a bachelor's degree in Spanish and international studies from the University of Wisconsin, and interned at the U.S . embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As part of a master's program in behavioral sciences at UC Davis, she did research in Guatemala.
Kester-McNees embarked on her summer trip with the support of the Casa Grande High School Site Council, which gave her $1,000 for the purchase of a camcorder and digital camera. The cameras will be used in the future by the school's language department.
She also received a $1,500 grant from the Foreign Language Association of Northern California and a $1,000 grant from the California Language Teachers Association.
The Rotary Club of Petaluma Valley helped her contact Rotarians in Oaxaca, who introduced Kester-McNees to peopl e working in a variety of professions.
Her aim in Oaxaca was to get plenty of real-world teaching materials for the school year, including a stack of photos of people at work, which can be used in her classroom.
As part of her pre-trip research, Kester-McNees looked for similar workplace Spanish classes for high school students in the United States, but did not locate any secondary level programs with similar curriculum.
While Kester-McNees' class will focus on language development, she intends to invite job-search specialists who can give her pupils an overview of what's involved in applying for jobs. She also will host a broad range of professionals who will talk about their jobs.
Although the guest speakers will address the class in English, Kester-McNees sees the information they will share as vital to her students understanding of the work world. They also will talk about how knowledge of Spanish could be useful in their fields.
"I have more offers of help than I know what to do with," she said.
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Story Source: The Press Democrat
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Honduras; Secondary Education; Spanish
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