Welcome! I have the honor of teaching Spanish at Sedalia Elementary School. In addition to this website, I also maintain a class Google Doc, which can be found at tinyurl.com/sedaliaspanish (no spaces). My goal is to make Spanish as comprehensible, relevant, and engaging as possible.

Many parents ask what they can do to help their children with Spanish. What I ask of parents is to be supportive of the class and to encourage learning and using Spanish. My Google Doc lists what students learn each week, resources that were used during class, and extra resources to further explore; although I don't expect memorization or error avoidance.

For those who want to expand their learning outside of class, I recommend finding things to read, watch, and/or listen to at their level. It can be difficult to find materials for absolute beginners, but there are "comprehensible Spanish" videos and videos of TPRS that should be understandable. As for books, there are CI readers that are made for beginners like the ones I have in my class library. Low unique word counts are recommended for those who are just starting Spanish. It's also great if students can talk to native or fluent Spanish speakers who can adjust their language to be understandable to novices, such as by speaking slowly with pauses, limiting new words at a time, and using visuals or gestures.

Research shows that people acquire languages by trying to understand what they hear and read during real communication with a purpose, such as to learn or give new information, to build social relationships, or for entertainment. Click here to read the full version of my teaching philosophy along with what is and isn't helpful when it comes to learning a language.

Students who put forth good effort and follow class expectations will be successful in my class. My rules and expectations can be found here.

Students and parents should understand that this is a low-frequency exploratory class. Although students will hopefully improve a tiny bit every time they see me, fluency is not expected. However, acquisitional growth is pretty much inevitable if they're understanding what they hear or read; and they will have a head start in middle school compared to students who have never been exposed to Spanish.

Contact Info

Email: bestr@gcsnc.com

Schedule

Mondays: McDowell, Green, Hardin, Croswell, Mentley, Trammell

Tuesdays: Murphy, Foster, Ms. Smith

Wednesdays: Jones, Martens, Lawson, Leftwich, Hodgin, Mr. Smith

Thursdays: Griffin, Cabot, Lawler, James, Hightower

Fridays: Walker, Pasek, Baldwin, Lavey, LaRue, Gale
 

Spanish Website

As mentioned above, I keep a class Google Doc. It has notes and materials and is updated over time. There are also websites to practice and learn even more.

I recommend keeping it bookmarked. You can review what we did in class, get caught up if you were absent, and go beyond what we cover at school. Let me know if any links no longer work.

You can click the following or type it with no spaces: tinyurl.com/sedaliaspanish