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Saint David's Boys Present at NECTFL

On a recent Friday morning at the NY Hilton, three Saint David's boys participated on the keynote address panel for the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. The panel gave each student a chance to share about an innovative, globally minded languages project or learning that they are doing with a teacher. 

In front of more than 1,000 educators in attendance, our boys, who were the only elementary school-age presenters, spoke knowledgeably about their projects and confidently answered questions that had been gathered from the audience.  

A third grader presented Mi Mascota: 
“Our next unit is on pets, and we will be creating books on how to care for different types of pets to share with the animal shelter in Spanish Harlem,” he said. “We hope our directions will help families adopting a pet to take good care of them.”

A sixth grader presented Siu Mai Peruano, sharing a Peruvian unit and cooking project from his Spanish class: 
“In this project we were assigned to research Peru’s geography and cuisine, find a recipe that interests us, rewrite the recipe in Spanish, and then film a cooking video of us preparing the dish with each of the instructions,” he explained. “I learned how much of an impact immigrants can have on a country. I enjoyed connecting to Peruvian culture because we learned about how the diverse geography in the three regions in Peru, la costa, la sierra, y la selva, influenced Peru’s food because they had access to a wide variety of different ingredients.”

Finally, a seventh grader presented Vóley playa, beach volleyball, from a worldwide sports project in Spanish. “I enjoyed connecting to world sports culture because it gave me the opportunity to learn about a sport I did not previously know much about,” he said. “ I also enjoyed learning the story of Ana Gallay and watching and interpreting her interview.”

It is not easy for adults to speak before such a large audience, but our boys impressively rose to the occasion. As a result, they have been invited to present at an upcoming local NYC conference for language educators.

This experience shines a well-deserved spotlight on our Pre-K through Grade 8 Spanish Immersion program, which not only cultivates proficiency in speaking and writing in the target language but also broadens perspectives by integrating cultural learning that deepens understanding and builds global competency.

Congratulations to our boys and to our exceptional modern languages teachers led by Dr. Tori Gilbert!

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