Ben, I thought I sent a bio earlier but I checked my sent mail and don’t see it. Está bien because I didn’t include some of the things you are requiring now anyways. Thanks again for everything. This year has gone much better with a year of experience and this blog.
My name is David Sceggel. I teach Spanish 1-4 at Midland High School in Varna, IL. I am the only foreign language teacher in the district. I have a really good situation here.
I graduated from Illinois State with a Technology Education degree and taught technology one year in Surrey, South London, UK. After that, I taught four years of Jr. High technology in Bloomington/Normal, IL.
In the spring of 2007, I left my position and worked at an orphanage in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, Mexico. I became a “dad” to nine boys aged 6-15. My language skills at the time were terrible, but with time I became pretty fluent with a good northern Mexican accent.
In the summer of 2009, I left the orphanage to marry my wife and we moved back to central Illinois. I jumped through the hoops to get certified in HS Spanish, and somehow, someway, talked my way into a job.
During that summer I kind of freaked out about the coming year and a wise teacher directed me to Blaine Ray. After reading a page in German at a conference in KC, I was completely sold. Devoured everything I could get my hands on. (TPRS in a Year! and PQA in a Wink!)
Last year I had such success with Spanish 1,2, and 4. We were laughing and making huge gains. I had parents thanking me. It was awesome.
However Spanish 3 hated me. I didn’t know where to start with them, and went from too easy to too hard, and eventually the rich white girls (90% of the class) just stopped participating. Each day was a black hole of energy and I eventually just did mostly reading.
This year everything is going better. Circling with Balls went awesome in Spanish 1, and I didn’t really know how to do PQA, until I saw (you) Ben Slavic do it at NTPRS this summer. Now I love PQA, so much fun.
My weakness is definitely upper level classes, but I think once I get to teach students that I’ve had for all their Spanish instruction, things will go better.
Right now I can’t do videos, also YouTube is blocked at my school. I do want to do videos though at one point, all the feedback people get makes me so jealous. Maybe next year.
Thanks for everything,
David