Welcome to Spanish
My name is Teresa Franco and I teach Spanish to primary and secondary phase students at Maharishi School. I am a native Spanish speaker and come from the capital of Galicia, Santiago de Compostela. I arrived in Liverpool in March 2015 and have taught Spanish in schools ever since. I am passionate about learning and teaching languages to students. I teach Spanish phonetics, vocabulary and grammar through the four skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing).
Games, songs and different activities through worksheets and computer tools are essential to help students be prepared for GCSE exams at the end of Key Stage 4. I also love talking about my culture and other Spanish-speaking cultures, artists and festivals to help students understand the importance of learning a new language. Learning a second language has been shown to greatly improve student performance across the curriculum. Language learning has also been shown to improve a student's cognitive function, including but not limited to:
- improved problem-solving skills;
- improved verbal and spatial skills;
- better memory function (short and long term);
- increased creative thinking ability;
- better memory;
- more flexible and creative thinking;
- Improved attitude towards the target language and its culture.
These cognitive benefits of language learning have been shown to improve student performance, resulting in higher scores on standardised tests, increased reading performance, larger student vocabulary in the native language (English), and increased academic performance at the college level.
