I never really appreciated Glastonbury's foreign language program until I got to college and was the only freshman on my floor who placed out of the university's foreign language requirement. Because I tested into a high-level course, I was able to complete my major in Spanish by taking just one Spanish course a semester. This allowed me to pursue a second major in English and a certificate in Latin American studies, as well as study abroad for a semester in Buenos Aires, without having to worry about meeting credit minimums.

After college, I moved to Puerto Rico to teach middle-school English for a year. I had expected to develop my fluency in Spanish, of course, but I never thought I'd rely so heavily on my high school Latin to help my students understand English. My school was lacking in resources, so I had to produce almost all of my own materials, and most of the worksheets and activities I created owed something to what I had learned in my three years of Latin. Nearly every week I conducted lessons on cognates and word roots, prefixes, and suffixes to develop my kids' vocabulary.

Now I've returned to Connecticut and am teaching Spanish at Glastonbury High School and Smith Middle School. I'm fascinated by language and how we learn it and use it; I find it exciting and inspiring to help kids move beyond their everyday lives to experience the linguistic and cultural unknown. I'm also anxious to learn new languages, French and Portuguese most of all. I think my enthusiasm for languages owes a great deal to Glastonbury's innovative program.