Dr. Olzanski is a new transfer teacher that came from Coosa High and joined Armuchee over the summer this year, so she could be the new Spanish teacher. Dr. Olzanski is native speaker of Spanish, and she talks in Spanish. “I chose to move to Armuchee because I heard it was a really good school, and I wanted to be closer to my son.” Dr. O said, “We would be listening to songs, playing games, working on pronunciation, learning about culture, and a whole lot of other stuff daily.” For example, on the week of the global holiday “El Tomatina” that takes place on the last Wednesday of August in Bunol, Valencia, and Spain, Dr. O let her students go into the hallway to throw paper tomatoes at each other. Then, they had to answer questions that were inside the tomatoes, semi-mimicking the events that take place during “El Tomatina.” She absolutely loves to teach a foreign language to students because there are so many fun and exciting ways to learn Spanish and make studying fun and entertaining through playing games and activities.
When discussing her language, Dr. Olzanski said, “I am a native speaker and that was my first ever language.” This provides insight into why Dr. Olzanski started teaching Spanish. She said, “I’ve taught other subjects before like American Government, Model UN, Latin American History, and International Organizations, but I think it is really fulfilling to teach kids another language.” She has taught around ten other subjects in her career, many of them being different versions of Spanish. Dr. O discussed her personal reasons for loving Spanish to such a high extent by saying, “It’s my native language, and it’s one of the most prevalent languages in the world, so I think It’s important for people to learn the language.” Dr. O decided to teach Spanish to students because she felt that it was an important language for someone to learn, and she has had much personal experience with the language.
Students enjoy Dr. O’s class for various reasons, interviewing fellow students Rylan Burk, Mac Floyd, Emerson Bruce, and Emery Jones on their thoughts about Dr. O being the new Spanish teacher at Armuchee showed that they love her class. Mac talked about what he liked most about her class, and he said, “Whenever I answer a question right in front of class, she gives me some candy for participating.” Dr. O just wants students to participate and give it a try at answering her question, so when they do she rewards them with sweets. Rylan Burk told what he didn’t like about Dr. O’s class, and he said, “Overall, there’s not anything I can think of that I don’t like about her class, I just like it the whole time I’m in there.” We can infer that her class is very fun and never boring at any point. Emerson Bruce told about what she thinks of Dr. O’s games and how helpful they are, and she said, “they are very good because they help you a lot and they are competitive games that help enhance your learning that makes you learn” What she meant by this was that her games are very fun and competitive, so it makes students want to play the games and learn more. Emery said what she thinks about Dr. O’s tests and assignments and how difficult they are. She said, “They’re moderate, because she makes the test challenging and it challenges my brain.” Dr. O’s tests are considered easy because students have been doing a great deal of reviews, and they are also considered hard because she still wants to challenge her students. After interviewing all these students that attend Dr. O’s class, it is clear that her class is considered very fun and entertaining because she gives rewards for participating, her class is never boring, she does tons of fun and competitive games, and her tests are moderately difficult.
Dr. Olzanski makes her class as fun as she can while teaching Spanish, but it can also be challenging sometimes. Dr. O discussed what it would be like to be in her class. She said, “We would be listening to songs, playing games, working on pronunciation, learning about culture, and a whole lot of other stuff daily.” She talked about her difficulties with teaching as well, and she said, “Behavior issues, students not wanting to do the work, frustration learning the language, and a lot of impatience.” This makes sense because the students are trying to talk in a different language for the first time ever, and they do not want to be embarrassed in front of the class. She mentioned some of the various methods she uses to teach her classroom daily, and she said, “I like to play games a lot, I like conversations, I like moving around, and I like things you can touch” This shows that a large amount of her class involves games, other social, and fun activities that can get students involved and excited to learn about the Spanish language.
Dr. O’s class is a very fun, engaging, and exciting class for the high school to have. Many students that were not interviewed have said things about her class being fun and engaging. From the evidence we have gathered, she gets students to participate in fun activities like a game where the student has to pick out the Spanish word and find the English word. In the future, things like fun classes and engaging activities may help teach children about the things they need to learn by helping them have a reason to learn and get better.
