BP1_Welcome to my blog

Well I am siting here in my living room with my feet up, sipping a cold diet coke, and thinking about what I am going to write for my first blog.

 I was born in Napa, California and raised in Costa Rica.  Spanish is my first language and since I was little my dad encouraged me to continue to learn English. I remember that when I started to learn how to write, my dad made me write a little paragraph about the things I had done for the day, then he collected by the end of the week and checked what I wrote. To be honest, I hated it.... it was torture for me at that age. I was not allowed to watch television in Spanish only in English, that means if they had to sacrifice  going out for dinner as a family in order to pay cable TV my dad would do it. He really wanted me to learn English. 

 Numerous times, I ended up crying because I wanted to watch TV shows that my friends did and did not want to take the time to write the paragraphs.   What was the point of learning English anyway? That was my question and argument all the time. Not knowing, what my dad was just trying to give a better opportunity for my future.  

Now, I am in a country where English is the main language and where I work as a Spanish teacher.

I tell my students, “you need to be able to speak Spanish when living in South Florida”, because most of the population is from Spanish speaking countries. South Florida is a place that if you want to work and succeed in your job you must know more than one language. 

For that reason, I have tried to implement technology in my curriculum and the use of Web 2.0 as well. Web pages such as dictionary.com, wordreference, Prezi, email, YouTube and many other  web engines have been beneficial for my students when learning Spanish. There are so many resources out there that help students to improve their Spanish skills in a whole different level.

So stay tune and follow my blog if you want to know other ways on how to implement Web 2.0 pages to teach foreign language.