Future language teachers

When Nathan Acevedo, a junior Spanish education and Chinese double major at the University of Delaware, first began learning Spanish in high school, he was “really bad at it” and almost quit.

But thanks to some great teachers in high school who showed him that not only was it possible for him to learn another language but also how important it is, he stuck with it — and now he wants to pass that knowledge and passion on to others.

“I want to take my value of foreign languages and foreign culture and be able to make an impact and give that exposure and experience to other students,” said Acevedo, who is from Wilmington, Delaware, and hopes to teach in the First State after he graduates from UD. “To me, one of the greatest marks that I can leave on society is by being a teacher. I think that cultural and language education are so important, and it feels like a great duty or a service to be able to pass that on to the next generation.”​

There are myriad career paths for someone who knows a second or third language — translator, tour guide, travel adviser and foreign service officer, to name a few. Proficiency in another language can also lead to higher earnings and can make a prospective employee more marketable, especially in industries like hospitality and healthcare. But several UD students are interested in a career perhaps a little less glamorous but much more fulfilling: teaching.

“I've always loved learning, and I really value education,” said Macy Morozin, a junior Spanish education major. “I want to be a teacher not only to help others learn about languages and other cultures, but to also spread my love for that and hopefully inspire more students to also recognize their own passions and their own interests.”

At UD, a world language education student will take as many language courses as a general language major. Students are essentially a language major with an education concentration, allowing them to have a much richer experience with the content.

“We have language professors who are experts in phonetics, phonology, cultural literature and other content areas that our students get to take classes with and interact with, so they have a much richer experience with the content and greater content knowledge by being a language major with an education concentration,” said Basia Moltchanov, assistant professor of Spanish and world language pedagogy in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. “I think that's really where UD excels.”​​

In addition to language courses, students will take pedagogy courses through the School of Education as well as classes through the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures that are specific to teaching language acquisition.

“It's a very good mix of theory and practice at the same time,” Acevedo said of the world language education program at UD. “The classes themselves have been nothing short of amazing. The faculty are here for us, they care about our success and they want us to be able to be really good world language educators when we go into the field.”

Second language acquisition is different from first language acquisition (how babies learn to talk), so UD world language education courses focus on what research has shown to be the best methods of teaching language in a classroom setting.

“There are a variety of contexts in which you can learn a second language, but we really focus on what it means to learn a language in the classroom,” Moltchanov said. “Students learn how to make a classroom as impactful as possible for those who are learning a language. We're teaching future educators how to teach in a classroom setting. That means their students have to have enough exposure to the language and enough practice with using the language, and are doing it in a way that’s going to mimic as closely as possible having meaningful interactions with a speaker of the languages being learned.”​​

Getting future educators into the classroom as early and often as possible is key to preparing successful teachers. At UD, students can go out into the field as early as their first year on campus and have the opportunity all four years to observe or teach in a classroom.

Brooke Meadowcroft, a senior French education and political science double major, has taught French to high school students in Delaware and also taught English to elementary school students while studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France, last semester.

“Teaching English to French students filled my cup so much — I loved it,” she said. “Teaching in France was the most wonderful thing I've ever experienced. Seeing their faces light up when they learned was extremely fulfilling.”​

Meadowcroft said her pedagogy classes at UD helped her develop a new outlook on how she herself best learns a new language.

“I learn best by immersing myself with others who speak the language,” she said. “Understanding, from a pedagogical point of view, why that helps me learn a language better is really helpful. I'm not going to go and read a bunch of things, because I know that's not the way that I best take in information. Instead, I would interact with people face to face, speaking the language. I learned through pedagogy courses how to teach people a language in the way that works best for them, and then I flipped that back on myself.”

The job outlook for world language teachers, particularly in Delaware, is strong. According to a 2015 report published by the U.S. Department of Education, Delaware has struggled with extensive teacher shortages since the 2002-2003 school year. There are shortages in content areas such as science, reading, math, music, art, foreign language and English as a second language. However, some areas are considered “critical need,” and foreign language is one of those “critical needs” in which Delaware has consistently reported a teacher shortage for the past two decades.

Juliana Monticello, a junior Italian education major, started studying Italian in sixth grade and knew from a young age that she wanted to be a teacher.

“I’m looking forward to helping kids love to learn,” she said. “Sometimes students say, ‘I'm bad at school. I'm bad at learning lan​guages.’ And that’s definitely not true. Everyone is capable of learning a language, and I want to help foster that love of learning for other students.”​

​ Article by Amy Wolf ​, photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and courtesy of Nathan Acevedo, Macy Morozin, Brooke Meadowcroft and Juliana Monticello 

Published May 18, 2023​

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