Why study Spanish? is the title of this article and it is a question I frequently ask my students. Surely the only language needed in the world is English, isn't it? And since we are lucky enough to speak the language that most of the world seems to be trying to learn, why bother studying other languages?

It is certainly true that English is a world language and that the whole of humanity seems to want to learn it. In fact, I've made a career of teaching English as a second language to foreign students in four continents over the last 40 years. So why am I teaching Spanish at Oxford Area School?

My personal answer to that question is that I am simply in love with the Spanish language and Hispanic culture.  However, the road has been a long one. It started with me living in Peru for a year when I was five years old, studying the language in Mexico in my twenties, teaching English in Paraguay and Spain over fourteen years, getting married in Chile and seeing our two oldest sons born in Spain and our youngest in Paraguay.

However, when we moved back to New Zealand in 1996, I continued teaching English as a Foreign Language to students from all over the world at Seafield School in New Brighton until 2011, when the Christchurch earthquakes pretty much destroyed the language school industry in the city. 

Forced to look for work quickly, we ended up in the United Arab Emirates for two years, and I worked for the Abu Dhabi government education ministry as a secondary English teacher. We returned to New Zealand in 2013 and I was fortunate enough to get relief work here at Oxford Area School and then in 2014 a part-time position teaching English, and Year 7/8 Spanish.

Now in 2021, we offer Spanish to Years 7 to 13, including all three levels of NCEA.

Year 7/8 students get two hours per week for one term in each of the two intermediate years, completing approximately 40 hours of Spanish study. It is great that students can start studying the language this young, as many New Zealand schools do not begin language study until Year 9. 

In Years 9/10, Spanish is an elective offered each semester with three hours a week in a composite class, both in terms of age and the length of time which students have studied the language. On the one hand, we have Year 9s and 10s who are in their third and fourth years, respectively, of Spanish, whereas on the other, we have other students, in both year groups, who have just started studying the language as complete beginners. Due to this considerable range, students are working independently, individually or in groups, at the level which they have reached on graded work books.

In the NCEA Spanish course for 2021, we are working at all three NCEA levels in the same class, albeit with only a total of five students. The students are following, just like their 7/8 and 9/10 counterparts, a personal work plan for the module of study at which they are working in the course textbook.