Gabriela Anaya

Anaya’s winning program, “Watch, Read, Listen… Express Yourself: Becoming Biculturally Savvy”, will turn her Spanish classroom into a bilingual virtual lab for students in her foreign language class. Students at Reidsville Middle School will use their own laptop computers and the Rosetta Stone software to develop their Spanish language skills. They will work individually and at their own pace while listening to real-life situations, reading Latin-American phrases, writing, and naturally producing speech with the software’s voice recognition feature. As the students develop their language skills, they will have the opportunity to practice what they learn on a regular basis due to the large Hispanic population in the area. The program will be evaluated through the Rosetta Stone software and through the presentations the students will make to their peers in other classes in the school and across the county. The goals of the program are to make Spanish more meaningful and accessible for all students, giving students the opportunity to learn more about international cultures through communication and technology, and instilling bicultural knowledge. Anaya, who lives in Greensboro, hopes the program will also encourage more contact between teachers and parents and ultimately begin to close the language gap between the Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish speaking cultures.