Erika Fitzgerald
From EcuadorWiki
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Background
I am a junior at Alma College, and I am majoring in Elementary Education] with a double minor in Spanish and English. I am interested in incorporating Spanish into my elementary classroom, so my students will be exposed to a culture that is becoming very prevalent in our country today. I am hoping to acquire a teaching job in either 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade. I am also interested in applying for the Teach for America program. While we are in Ecuador, I will be living with Angie Szatkowski (see Host families). Kelley Halverson and I will be working together to create an educational resource - a children's book.
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Why Ecuador?
My mom spent five years of her childhood in Argentina, so I have grown up hearing my grandparents and my mom speak Spanish sporadically as they would speak Spanish to each other when they didn't want my sister or me to understand what they were saying. Because I wanted to understand what they were saying and also because I had an interest in the language, I took four years of Spanish in High School. My senior year of High School I traveled to Spain for 10 days with the Spanish club. This trip gave me a very minimal opportunity to speak Spanish. Since then I have had the desire to travel to a Spanish-speaking country in South America and spend more than just 10 days in that location. Because I am an Elementary Education major, it is very hard to spend a whole semester abroad. When I saw there was an opportunity to go to Ecuador for Spring term, I was very excited and really wanted to go. I was also very excited that part of the experience involved working in a school. I think it will be an incredible opportunity to work in a school in a different country. I am really excited to see the differences between our school systems.
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Expectations
La Academia
- Improve my Spanish-speaking skills
- Be able to speak to natives
- Learn the dialect of Ecuador
Host Family
- Become part of their family
- Carry on conversations in Spanish and understand each other really well
- Learn about the culture of Ecuador
- Experience some of the cultural foods
- Visit places in Quito typical tourists may not know about
Assisting in the Classroom
- Learn about the education system in Ecuador
- Have the opportunity to take over the class for atleast a lesson
- Develop relationships with the students
- Learn cultural differences that I can share with the students that I teach in the future
