Sophomore Adilene Peynado works on translating animal names from English to Spanish as part of a Spanish for Heritage Speakers project. Photo by: Patricia Ortiz

By Patricia Ortiz

During the 2010-2011 school year, the Plymouth High School’s Foreign Language Department opened its arms to a new class.

Spanish for Heritage speakers is the new foreign language class offered to Spanish speaking students at PHS. This class is taught by Mrs. Constancia Wendt (referred to by students as Señora Wendt).

The class is two trimesters long. Students can only take Spanish for Heritage Speakers one year.

This class is “Spanish for students who are native or nearly fluent speakers of the language,” Mrs. Wendt said. Some students enrolled in the class would say that Spanish for Heritage Speakers is like an advanced Spanish class.

Senior Sabrina Morrison said, “[Spanish for Heritage Speakers] helps you improve in vocabulary, speaking [Spanish], and reading.” The class also teaches geography about the different Hispanic countries around the world sophomore Paola Moreno said.

Like any other class, the students enrolled in Spanish for Heritage Speakers have to complete homework assignments. The homework that students had to do for this class consisted of reading texts and stories in Spanish sophomore Adilene Peynado said. Not only do the students read in Spanish but their homework assignments also consist of learning about grammar and writing in Spanish, according to senior Jose Ortiz.

Projects are a big part of any class. In Spanish for Heritage Speakers the projects the have to do are, “translating animals[from English to Spanish], researching a Hispanic country, and giving a demo[nstration] speech [given in Spanish],” freshman Monica Figueroa said. All of the projects done in this class need to be presented in Spanish. Right now, the students currently enrolled in the class are “working on a countries project. The objective is for students to learn about other Spanish-speaking countries, including tiny neighbors like El Salvador, little-known ones like Guinea Ecuatorial and ones with snowy mountain peaks,” Mrs. Wendt said.

The reason most of the students took the class was to improve on his/her Spanish speaking abilities. Sophomore Karla Rosas took the class because she wanted to “learn a more formal and correct way of speaking and writing in Spanish.” Freshman Marisela Vicencio agrees with Rosas and adds that because she did not know a lot of Spanish she took the class to expand her vocabulary and to learn to write Spanish.

“[My favorite part of the class is] realizing that there are many new things you can improve in Spanish. The teacher makes the class feel comfortable,” Morrison said.