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Guest Blog! International Teachers Irene and Rocio Share About Their Passion Project, GaMar Talk

June 30, 2020 by guest Leave a Comment

“A year ago we decided to set off searching for new projects and to enhance our knowledge about education and teaching languages abroad; this is why we joined the “Profesores Visitantes” program and ended up living and working in Maryland, USA.

Irene (Ms. G) is a Music, English and Spanish teacher from Toledo, Spain; and Rocio (Ms. M) an English and Spanish teacher from Málaga, Spain. We both love teaching and once we met this past August we clicked immediately because we had a big passion in common: our profession.

These past months have had a lot of ups and downs; settling in to a new culture, country and educational system, but thankfully we have had many help and have been sharing ideas and resources with each other.

As many people know, teaching a foreign language can be very challenging, there has to be a lot of visual, auditory and active learning because motivation is crucial in learning new languages.

In March, our lives, as many others, took a huge turn and suddenly the best part of the day was taken away: going to school to motivate and share with our students how exciting and important learning a new language is.

How are we going to motivate all of our students to keep learning without seeing them? Also, our age range is very wide (from Pre-k to 5th grade) and we wanted to try and meet all of their needs through our computers. So after many many conversations, frustrations, planning and research we came up with “GaMar Talk”. We decided we were going to create fun, visual and dynamic videos to help the youngest ones learn Spanish while we were apart. Our main focus was to make it feel like the students were continuing to interact with our “real” selves so we chose to create characters that looked like us and had our voices.

Then the next idea hit us! Why create it only for our schools, when the whole world was in the same situation? We didn’t want this COVID-19 to stop kids from enjoying their learning! This is why we began making videos in both languages, with easy vocabulary words about diverse topics, basic grammar structures and with a little fun story to it. They are short and adaptable to each age, able to catch and maintain the child’s attention, which we know is often very short.

We are now creating a new video each week, in both English and Spanish, which we upload to our YouTube channel, and advertise in all our Social Media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and Pinterest) and on our Website.

This is only the beginning of a project we hope will reach out to more and more people each day, to help as many students, teachers and/or parents along this learning process.

Our videos have been very supportive for our distance learning. They are great for introducing new vocabulary words, trying to give their learning a meaning and a purpose, making it practical for our students, as we create situations where the language is not only useful but fun to learn.

As we have been receiving many positive feedbacks from our new GaMar Talk community, we find ourselves sparked and excited about designing new stories for Ms. G and Ms. M and all her friends!

We can’t wait to get back to our classrooms, but in the meantime we will enjoy watching our virtual GaMar Talk family grow, while we interact and get to know so many other colleagues and new friends around the world, that, like us, are trying to contribute to improve our society.

So if you have made it to this point, and you have found our project interesting, we would love to invite you to join us on our platforms and become a part of our community!

We really hope you enjoy them as much as we do, and we are open to new ideas and constructive comments, we are learning from this situation all together, and hopefully we will also overcome it too.

Thank you very much,

Ms. G & Ms. M”

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This experience changed my life! Now, I have more dreams and some other goals. I'm so thankful for everything that I've learned. I want to continue growing as a human and as a teacher. The Amity program is one the best things that ever happened to me." - Michelle, 2018-2019 Intern

We have been working with Amity for several years. Learning about different cultures, communities, traditions, music, arts, dances and more, helps our students to see the world as a global place fostering diversity and respect. Having a second adult in the classroom helps our teachers to be able to have more individualized attention to students and work on small groups. Amity has been a wonderful organization to work with, reliable and accessible, bringing highly qualified young people to work in our school."- Maria Buceta Miller, Amity School Coordinator, John Stanford International School

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We would like to recognize Mr. Morales’ for bein We would like to recognize Mr. Morales’ for being awarded Teacher of the Year! 🇵🇭Congratulations on all of your achievements and this amazing recognition. We’re so happy and proud to have you as a teacher in our program! 

Below is what Mr. Morales has shared with Amity Institute regarding his award: 

“I’m honored to share that I was selected as Teacher of the Year at Harvest Preparatory Academy and have been nominated for the city-wide Teacher of the Year award.

This recognition would not have been possible without the incredible opportunity and support provided by Amity Institute. As a cultural exchange teacher, I’m deeply grateful for the chance to grow, connect, and contribute meaningfully to my school community.

I’m also proud to share that I was chosen to deliver the keynote address to our graduating seniors.

On a personal note, my wife Hannah continues to grow in her role as District EL Coordinator, and our son Caiden is thriving—he was recently selected to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at his kindergarten graduation.

Thank you again for making this journey possible for our family.”

#bridgeusa #j1
Congratulations to Idelisa Bianel Quezada Rodrigue Congratulations to Idelisa Bianel Quezada Rodriguez, for winning third place in the Volunteerism category of our photo contest! 🇩🇴

“In this photo, we are at the University Food Bank, where we had the opportunity to collaborate with the fifth-grade Spanish students from McDonald International School. During our visit, we worked as a team packing rice into bags, a task that not only allowed us to help those in need but also enjoy an environment of cooperation and learning.

It was a very fun and enriching experience, where we all came together to make a difference, while also strengthening our bonds as a group. Each one of us contributed actively, and in the end, we felt proud to have been part of such an important cause.”

#J1 #bridgeusa
Congratulations to Abdoul Aziz Ndiaye, for winning Congratulations to Abdoul Aziz Ndiaye, for winning second place in the Volunteerism category of our photo contest! 🇸🇳

“This picture is with the soccer players at Milwaukee French Immersion School. 
I was volunteering to be the Soccer Coach and they really liked it we won ours four out of 6 games!”

#J1 #bridgeusa
Congratulations to Marlen Konzet Garcia, for winni Congratulations to Marlen Konzet Garcia, for winning first place in the Volunteerism category of our photo contest! 🇪🇸

“This is a photo in the organization Feed my Starving Children in Eden Prairie over Thanksgiving break with my host family-The Harringtons. In the left Keri (mom), then James (son), after him Emily (daughter) very concentrated in her job, Levi (dad) and last me (Marlen). We helped create 32,184 meals.”

What a great way to give back to the community! 

#J1 #bridgeusa
Congratulations to Kevin Cristian Melo Guata, for Congratulations to Kevin Cristian Melo Guata, for winning third place in the Host-Family category of our photo contest! 🇨🇴

“Celebrating December 31st in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, with my host mom’s entire family. A night filled with joy, gifts, delicious food, and, of course, a family photo to remember. This moment represents the warmth and love with which they welcomed me into their home, making me feel part of the family on such a special date.”

What a night to remember! 

#J1 #bridgeusa
Congratulations to Ignacio Esnaola Capa, for winni Congratulations to Ignacio Esnaola Capa, for winning second place in the Host-Family category of our photo contest! 🇪🇸

“Over Christmas break we went to Cancun (Mexico). And one of the adventures of our trip was to visit Chichen Itza, one of the main Mayan archaeological sites in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, declared a World Heritage Site. 

In this picture are my host family and me. Matt and Laura, George and Joey. This fun photo was taken by our guide Jose.”

#J1 #bridgeusa
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