PEA RIDGE — Evelyn Villarreal knows what it’s like to speak a different language than everyone around her. She grew up in southern California speaking Spanish in her home, and learned English when she went to school.
Villarreal, the new Spanish teacher at Pea Ridge High School, has a desire to help students learn the language.
Her grandparents live in Mexico. She grew up in southern California, but moved with her parents to Joplin, Mo., several years ago because the cost of living was much less than on the west coast. Her parents don’t speak English.
“I know how it feels and remember the frustration,” she said, remembering learning English when she went to first grade in California. “You just have to make a connection.”
Villarreal has a double major in math and Spanish and said she loves math, but she can use her creative side in Spanish.
At Pea Ridge High School, Villarreal is teaching both Spanish I and Spanish II. She said she has been pleasantly surprised by the students in Pea Ridge.
“Their attitudes - I didn’t expect them to be so good. I grew up in California. There were gangs. There were behavior problems.” Villarreal didn’t take Spanish until she went to college and that’s where she learned more about writing and reading it.
Her heart language, the language in which she thinks, is Spanish. She said sometimes when she is talking to some one she realizes she has to translate her thoughts from Spanish to English.
Studying abroad, being immersed in the language, is helpful to learn ing a language, Villarreal said, adding that she goes to Mexico regularly to visit her grandparents.
She loves the fact that at Pea Ridge, it seems as thought all the students know and care about one another. But she said greetings are different and in America, people seem to need their space more and her culture is more physically demonstrative.
The biggest challenge to the students learning Spanish well is that usu ally there is no one at home to help them with their homework and the pronounciations.
Miss EV, as the students call her becausepronouncing her name was difficult to them, loves music and, in fact, is in northwest Arkansas because her love of music helped her find her love. She said she went to Springdale, Ark., from Joplin to a music concert of one of her favoriteLatino bands. There she met a young man and they began dating and she plans to move to northwest Arkansas soon. For now, she commutes from Joplin, where she attended college at Missouri Southern State University.
School, Pages 12 on 10/06/2010