FACULTY Bringing the Hispanic World


Into the Classroom MARIA MCIVOR, SPANISH


Maria McIvor: Spanish


Providence College, BA Middlebury College, MA


Appointed 2007


"Maria is accessible to her students and our office is often filled


with students who need extra help or who just come in to say hello."


— Dana Mosher Lewis W


hen you first observe Maria’s Spanish classroom you


might be confused as to which department she is in…English? History? Art? PE? Music? Computers? One day the students are sitting in a circle, drinking tea and discussing a short story they read, and the next they are debating the Cuban Revolution. Then they are down on the track, conversing and activating their brains by moving their bodies. One week they might be creating murals that ref lect the themes studied throughout the year, and the next they are in the computer lab listening and recording responses. They sing,


dance, talk, play games, read, write, and create videos, all in an attempt to bring Spanish to life, to immerse our students in the language and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. Maria brings energy and


creativity to our language program. She constantly is looking for ways to improve her teaching, to better reach all students, and to expose them to the richness of the Spanish language. She stays current with ideas germane to language learning and attends conferences (Learning and the Brain, AP Institutes) which she then shares with her colleagues. She shares her own experiences living in other cultures (Spain, Mexico,


Ecuador) with her family. Her students routinely score at the top of the scale on both the National Spanish Exam and the notoriously difficult AP Spanish Language exam. Maria is accessible to her students and our office is often filled with students who need extra help or who just come in to say hello. The growth in students’ language skills as well as the affection that they feel for Maria is evident. Two years ago Maria


created a new course for the department—Hispanic Culture and Communication—and she has worked hard to make the course bring Spanish to life for her students, to bring “real” Spanish into the classroom. In addition to working with the Spanish- speaking community at Vose Elementary School, Maria often brings in speakers to present their stories to her class. Using resources from Hispanic connections within our school (Gabe Edge’s mother and grandfather from Cuba, Maya Lusk’s grandparents from Spain, Bon Appetit chef Noe Villagrana from Mexico, to outside native speakers (Mijail Otero, a Russian-educated Cuban immigrant living in Portland), Maria has shared with her students the people from other cultures in our own community.


by Dana Mosher Lewis, Spanish teacher


12 OES MAGAZINE WINTER 2011 12


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