Maria Rajewski teaches Spanish at Utica high school. She is currently teaching Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 but does not teach Spanish 1.
Games that are played in her Spanish class are Draw What I Say and the Drawing Game.
One of the things she does is give each student a chance to participate, which is worth a grade. In class students also do plays and fun projects.
“As long as you try that’s all that matters to me,” Rajewski said. “I keep my students interested in the subject by doing games and projects.”
In class students play a wide variety of games to learn Spanish. Compared to most teachers, she doesn’t give lots of homework tests during the quarter. She mostly uses participation as a grade and worksheets that she goes over.
“In Spanish 2 and 3 during class we also celebrate holidays like the Day of the Dead,” Rajewski said. “I like playing Spanish movies to help give my students a wider perspective about Spanish.”
Playing games help with remembering and getting the information in your head, paper can make you easily forget it and any online app is easier to cheat on.
“When learning a new language, you need to be exposed to it, hear it and speak with it looking at a piece of paper only won’t help,” Rajewski said.
Jasmine Lugo emphasized that learning a new language with an app is not interesting at all it makes learning boring. It also does make it harder for her to learn as a student.
“Rajewski as a teacher really interacts with us students and explains all of the information and instructions when doing a project or assignment,” Lugo said. “Finding a teacher that does all of this is hard and how she also uses context clues when speaking is very important as well.”
Spanish three is currently working on a project called Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead is a 3-day holiday that happens every year to show their respects and love for dead family members. During this project, students learn when it is, what it is about, and they also learn the history behind it. Spanish two will be throwing Mexican style party and will watch a movie about it.
“Making a project and also being able to watch a movie helps students learn about day of the dead in a fun way” Rajewski said.
Her class is a required credit to graduate and learning a new language could interest you. Language has culture and meaning behind it, and you never know when a spark could arise.
