About Me

Hello Class!

Welcome to Spanish, your introductory class to your first second language you'll ever learn.  My name is Mr. Bell and the Spanish language is my life and I'm extremely glad to be able to share it with all of your for the upcoming school year.

I graduated from Grand Valley State University in December of 2015 with degrees in Secondary Education and Spanish, as well as emphases (minors) in Applied Linguistics and English.  We'll talk more about all of this in class, especially considering some of you may not even know what linguistics truly is!  In addition to learning Spanish, I'll introduce all of you to linguistics.  I have also lived in Mexico for a year, studying abroad at La Universidad de las Américas (UDLA) in Puebla, Mexico, which still today remains one of the best experiences of my life.  I encourage you all to start thinking about study abroad now and will be encouraging you to start thinking about it all throughout the school year.

During my time at Grand Valley, I was a teacher assistant at Union High School in Grand Rapids, MI.  This is where I truly first became a teacher and fell in love with what I do.  This is why I am here with you all today.  Before Grand Valley, however, I graduated from Marcellus High School in 2006 in Marcellus, MI, which is a small little town near the Indiana border.  I graduated with a class of some 66 students, remarkably small for most high schools.  In my free time, I like to learn other foreign languages--I'm currently trying to teach myself Japanese with the help of some friends--and I like to stay up-to-date on current trends in the field of linguistics and second language acquisition.  In simpler terms, I'm a language nerds.  I'm interested in all things related to languages, be it English, Spanish, Japanese, German, or even Wyandot, a language with only one native speaker remaining as of 2011!  In addition, I like to volunteer in places where students are leanring English as a second language, such as in the Newcomer's program at Union High School or at the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan.

In this class, you will be immersed in the Spanish language and culture.  By entering through the classroom doors, you will be leaving an English-speaking school and entering a Spanish-speaking classroom.  One of the variety of ways I accomplish this feat is through technology.  We will watch music videos of authentic Spanish-speaking artists, we will skype with students from Spanish-speaking countries (or even here in the United States!) and we will use apps that you can download on your phones to help continue and strengthen your language skills.  One such app, which is free, is DuoLingo.  I will explain more about DuoLingo in the weeks to come--it will be an integral part of your language learning experience.  Technology will be an integral part of our classroom, but remember, the most important part is you.  My class is not a traditional classroom where you learn and I test you; instead, we will be focusing on speaking the language in the classroom.  The technology I provide to you will only be a means to an end, and that end is preparing you to be able to speak in a language not your own--Spanish.

To conclude, I would like to share with you some of my experiences I had while studying at UDLA.  One of the best things about learning a foreign language is meeting new people.  By being able to speak Spanish, you open your horizons by being able to speak to nearly 600 million more people than you could with knowing only English.  By being bilingual in Spanish and English, you are able to speak with over a billion people in the world, and not to mention the majority of people in the Americas.  While living in Mexico, I made a lot of lifelong friends, some of which you will meet in the classroom via our Skype conversations.  Check out the following photos.  I will show them again to you in class on Monday of next week when we'll talk about studying abroad.  After all, the purpose of language is to connect people.  By being able to speak Spanish, you'll be connected to many more people than you were previously before.