BOONEVILLE, Miss. (WTVA) - A recent meeting brought high school foreign language teachers from this area to one place, to gather and share ideas about how to make what they teach more appealing to their students.
It's a way to show teachers how to make what's literally a foreign subject more interesting.
Tishomingo County High School Spanish and French instructor Laura Hall said, "One of the things we get out of this workshop is activities and games they (students) can play and learn from without realizing they are learning."
The teachers are members of the Mississippi Foreign Language Association.
The group is working to help teachers in the classroom but also make the general public more aware of the importance of having foreign language in the schools.
Mississippi Foreign Language Association President Yohanna Jimenez said, "It's hard to compete with football. It's hard to compete with music. Foreign language will not only help students learn a foreign language, but will help them do better in their scores for math and English and reading."
She also points out the non-English speaking minority population in this country is growing and language barriers must be overcome.
The foreign language teachers at this workshop are often times the only ones in their building or at their school.
They say knowing there is someone just a phone call away is important.
Hall said, "There's somebody else who basically speaks their language. There's somebody who understands what they're going through. They can give them ideas of things that will work in the classroom they haven't tried or something that they wanted to try and didn't know would work."
The end result, these teachers say, hopefully makes for a better foreign language classroom.
Contact foreign language teacher Laura Hall at Tishomingo County High School if you want more information about the Mississippi Foreign Language Association.
