I will add more bios as we go along. The posters are updated on that page of this site and we can talk about that. I thought it would be a big deal but since they are all up there each of us can just reference what we want. Anyway, here’s our own Anny:
I’m Anny Ewing, teacher of K-5th Spanish at Westtown School. I’ve wandered a bit in my career as an educator, having gone to graduate school in Linguistics in the early 80s, when I also was a TA in college-level French and Linguistics; then taught high school French and Spanish at Westtown, and at Swiss Semester in Zermatt in the mid 80s; followed by a brief stint in shoe biz (working for an importer with shoe factories in Mexico and China), and in college counseling at Shipley School; and then 14 years developing multimedia materials for foreign language educators and textbook publishers with the Project for International Communication Studies (PICS) at the University of Iowa, and on my own as Altamira Educational Solutions. I finally returned to the classroom at the “just right” level when I started an after-school FLES program at my sons’ elementary school in 2000, then came back to Westtown in 2002 to teach Lower School Spanish. Since then I have been gradually developing curriculum around stories, some culturally authentic tales from Peru, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, the DR; others about what’s happening with the students in the moment; and some which focus on our Lower School vegetable garden where Spanish students plant, tend, harvest and prepare food from calabazas in Kindergarten through salsa cruda in 5th grade.
I discovered TPRS at a one-day workshop led by Carol Gaab in Allentown, PA in spring of 2007. This fun, creative, input-focused, comprehension-based philosophy of teaching has helped me understand learning in a whole new light. It touches not only my language teaching, but my way of being in the classroom and interacting with students throughout the school day. It is by far the most exciting, creative, and effective way I’ve ever taught language, at any level. One intensive Arabic class, three more workshops and five national conferences later, I am more convinced than ever.This blog and the moretprs list are vital to my professional development and sanity, as I am the only language teacher in my division, the only elementary teacher among 10 language teaching colleagues, and the only TCI teacher in our PK-12 school.
In a show of recognition that I may be onto something important, Westtown granted me a sabbatical in spring of 2011 to visit schools where comprehensible input is at the heart of language teaching, and where language learning is an integral part of K-12 education for a connected world. I visited 20+ schools in CT, VT, CA, CO, PA, OH, and MI; met 50+ language teachers, ranging from a first-year AmeriCorps teacher to 40-year veterans; many with their own well-appointed classrooms, others racing ‘Español on a Roll’ carts down halls and up elevators. I sat in on language classes in French, Latin, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish; in inner-city, small-town and suburban schools; public, charter, independent, and religious schools; day and boarding; high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, and PK-12 schools; with class sizes ranging from 10 to 40+ students; and observed language taught at levels Pre-K through AP. With the input of so many new ideas and connections, I have tried, intermittently, to pause and reflect by outputting my observations in a blog. See my faltering progress at Profe Anny Cuenta.
I live on a small farm in Chester County, PA, with my husband Larry and two sons, Sam and Henry. When we’re not working at our respective schools, we raise llamas and chickens, have a sizable vegetable garden, and variously enjoy hiking, travel, scuba diving, skiing, Wiiing, reading, soccer, surfing, and rugby.
Anny Ewing