The Ankeny High School (AHS) Spanish department offers a multitude of opportunities for students on their language journey. The Copan Exchange Program, 8 DMACC credits, cultural connection, and communication are just a few of these opportunities.

For some, Spanish is just a 42-minute class period in the middle of their school day. For others, it’s their cultural heritage and their everyday native language. Connecting to the rich Hispanic culture is a key component of the Spanish department at AHS.

Spanish opportunities

It is simple for students to learn Spanish in the classroom, but the real impact happens when they get the opportunity to use their Spanish in their everyday lives. The AHS Spanish department has put an extra emphasis on providing real experiences for students.

“I bring coffee from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and France. I have coffee from different countries, and the kids can taste coffee every day from different countries,” said Spanish IV and V teacher Rosana Brewer.

Another opportunity the Spanish department offers for students is the student exchange program with Copan. Students can host a Spanish-speaking student from Mexico in order to exchange American and Mexican cultures.

“We’ve opened [the Copan exchange program] up to students who aren’t in Spanish class for hosting and going. It really was born out of the Spanish program and trying to get kids to use Spanish outside of Iowa to open our eyes to other communities and people,” Spanish III and IV teacher Elizabeth Dentlinger said.

Reportedly, students thoroughly enjoy learning about other cultures and their celebrations, traditions, and food. The AHS Spanish department offers a creative outlet for students to explore these interests.

“My favorite part is the community, because it’s just a really uplifting community, and I love Spanish. I love the dynamic of it, and it’s really interesting. I really love the culture of it as well,” Spanish Honor Society and Spanish V student Charlee Cibula said.

Seal of Biliteracy

The Seal of Biliteracy test provides students with the opportunity to showcase their bilingual abilities and earn a seal, which demonstrates their proficiency in speaking multiple languages. The test aims for proficiency, not perfection.

The test has four components: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. All students at AHS have the opportunity to take the test if they want, and they can take it every year until they pass. Although most students wait until their junior or senior year to take it.

“I saw the test sophomore year as a, maybe I’ll do it. I probably won’t pass, but it’d be good to get the experience,” Spanish IV student Ava Potter said.

Potter passed the Seal test in her sophomore year. Oftentimes, the test process gets easier and easier as a student continues to move through the levels of Spanish classes. The more experience students have in Spanish and around the language, the easier the test seems to be for them.

“What the Seal of Biliteracy does, is it guarantees that you can do specific things in certain types of situations,” Dentlinger said.

Preparation for testing

The Spanish department highly encourages students to take the Seal of Biliteracy test, and they put in a lot of time and effort to help them succeed when test week comes.

“I try to run one to two Hawk Time sessions that target each of the specific skills, and I try to cater it in a very specific way for the seal. I always start with a session or two on just what the test is like,” said Dentlinger.

More than Hawk Times, Dentlinger incorporates strategies and foundational lessons in her everyday classroom routine.

“I do writing practices [in class]. I try to have them structured very strategically to elicit vocabulary they would expect on the seal. So, all of my writing tests, I ask for students to apply it to their own life,” Dentlinger said.

While teachers prepare Hawk Times for practice, some students may feel inclined to practice outside of school.

“I’d practice actually speaking the language with someone else. Just randomly in conversation. I have a tendency to just start speaking in Spanish with some of my friends who are also in the class, and I feel like that helped me out with my speaking a lot,” Potter said.

Next to speaking, Spanish students often struggle with the listening test because the speakers are native, and they’re not always used to listening to native speakers.

“One thing that helped me was watching Disney movies in Spanish, because I already knew what was going to happen. I knew roughly the storyline, so I could start correlating those words in my brain,” Potter added.

This strategy also extends to listening to songs in Spanish. The more students listen to the language, the more familiar they’ll become with it.

Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica

A huge asset to both Ankeny High School and the Hispanic community is the Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica, also known as the Spanish Honor Society. AHS members and leaders have taken a lot of pride in their work connecting classroom work with the real world.

“The purpose of the Spanish National Honor Society is to integrate the learning process and make sure that we appreciate the culture. It’s pretty much like using the language as much as you can, [and] helping with the language as much as you can,” Brewer said.

For SHH students, appreciating the culture often involves innovative Spanish activities and volunteering in the community.

“Usually, we have meetings a few times a month, and it’s a whole bunch of stuff. We play games, we learn about culture, and then we also organize and come up with ideas to include more people and grow our community,” said Cibula.

Students involved with the Spanish Honor Society ultimately want to help encourage others to use the Spanish language, and they structure a variety of activities around that goal.

“We bring in Spanish National Honor Society students to help the [Seal of Biliteracy] students with speaking. They make some comments on how they can make their speech better. Sometimes the students will feel much better when another student, a peer, gives them feedback,” said Brewer.

It’s not always serious; sometimes the SHH will enjoy cultural events to help embrace the traditions of others.

“We had a salsa [taste testing] and we tried different salsas. Everybody brought in their own salsa; some were homemade, and we did a vote on it. We got to pick out our tortilla chips and try the salsas, and that was really fun,” Cibula said.

Experiencing other cultures and learning to speak another language brings joy to students, in a school day that often feels overwhelming.

Impact of learning Spanish

Learning Spanish can give students peace of mind knowing they can speak two languages and communicate with a wider range of people.

“Knowing that I have the seal, it gives me a lot more confidence in my own Spanish class, knowing that the government sure thinks I can speak it. It certainly boosted my confidence in certain things. It makes me want to continue with Spanish, maybe into college,” Potter shared.

Being bilingual offers many opportunities and benefits for students both in high school and as they look to the future.

“One benefit would be they can take [the Seal], and it makes them look more valuable compared to monolingual speakers,” said Dentliger. “For those people going to college, it looks good for scholarship applications.”

Beyond college, learning a new language can continue to provide benefits for students in their everyday lives.

“It’s a really fun time, and I think learning a new language is really helpful. There are genuinely so many advantages to speaking multiple languages. If you know one, it’s easier to learn more. It’s such a useful language to learn, especially in American society and today’s world,” Potter said.

Connecting with cultures

A major faction of the Spanish department is teaching students to connect with others who differ from them.

“We get to study other cultures, which you don’t really ever get to do. You get access to a bunch of different people, and you’re able to connect to a lot of different people,” SHH President Brynn Blume said.

Teaching students to connect with other communities and cultures is exactly what AHS Spanish teachers are aiming to do.

“My job is to prepare my students to be outside the building and be very successful and prepared to accept the differences of other cultures,” Brewer said.

Brewer speaks fluent Portuguese, Spanish, and English. She was born in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, and she has brought her own experiences with her to her Iowa classroom.

“I’m from Brazil, I want the kids to understand that I’m different. But I’m different in a good way,” Brewer said.