¡Metas 2020! / Goals 2020!

¡Cómo pasa el tiempo! I know, I know, I say this every year... pero es la verdad! Time FLIES, amigos! This year has been an especially exciting one for Spanish Alive as we moved into a permanent space! This has opened up so many doors for us to better serve YOU, our Spanish-learning community!

We are so grateful for those of you that have come along for the ride and supported us along the way! Heaven knows you had a hard enough time keeping up with all of our class locations that we rented along the way. Shout out to Crosstown Pub, Sports HQ (Lynn!), The Cary Quilting Company, La Farm Bakery, Techniquest, Totopos, my house!........... and all the other places we've held classes since we started in fall 2017.

I love taking time at the end of the year to reflect on growth and make new #goals for the coming year (although I must admit, it's a bit harder to find that time with a very energetic 18-month old running around the house this year). Below is a list of some things we achieved this year at Spanish Alive:

-Two new, talented instructors, Anya & Caroline, joined our team!

-Revamped curriculum and added another level to better meet your language needs

-Moved into permanent classroom space

-Expanded community group class offerings

-Added Music & Yoga immersion classes

-Redesigned Student Portal to allow for easier navigation and added a whole bunch of new resources!

-Started hosting a monthly local language teacher meet up for continued professional development

-Attended another fabulous Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana show with a group of students (they're coming back in a few weeks! Don't miss it!)

-Visited the NCMA with a group of students to see the Frida & Diego exhibit (Exhibit runs until January 19 if you want to check it out!)

-Started consistently sending out fabulous monthly newsletters to keep you all in the loop (thanks in HUGE part to Caroline! Gracias!)

#Metas (Goals) 2020

We have so many big ideas... but these are the three big areas that we will be working on improving for 2020.

Meta 1) Make learning Spanish more accessible.

We want to make learning Spanish more accessible to everyone! This year, we plan to do the following two things to help make this happen.

(1) Create free, quality online content for our students and Spanish learners everywhere!

In order to reach an advanced level of proficiency in a language, learners need thousands of hours of exposure to it! We wish we could hang out with you (our students) all day, every day, but alas, we'll have to settle with trying to invade your phones or tablets to help you achieve your goals outside of class!

There is an over-abundance of free grammar videos and activities online, but there is not much contextualized content for beginner Spanish learners. We're starting off with the small goal of creating one contextualized video per month for absolute beginners! Stay tuned!

(2) Scholarships for teachers and school support staff

We want to make our classes accessible to those that need it the most. One of our community's areas of needs is Spanish education for teachers and support staff. This year we will be providing 4 scholarships to teachers and school support staff that could have a direct impact on their school communities by knowing Spanish. Find out more on the homepage of our website. Deadline to apply for upcoming session is January 4.

Meta 2) Improve Visibility/Communication related to our Resources

Friends, we have so many tools available to guide you on your path to proficiency in Spanish! We realized via our student feedback forms that a lot of our resources are not visible or as easily-accessible as we thought. Here are some things we will be improving this year:

-Continue to improve flow of our Student Portal to easily guide you through resources -Complete project to help you understand and talk about your proficiency level and goals.

-Classroom Library:

-Display information and research related to reading to build proficiency

-Reorganize student library to help you find a book that's right for you

-Create tips on how to approach reading in Spanish as a beginner learner

-Create signage and "flow" in classroom to help you to find materials that you need

Meta 3) Offer more opportunities for our students to learn alongside their children.

While the primary focus of our services will always be Adult Education, we realize that many of our students are learning Spanish to support their children's second language development. We want to support your family language-learning journey! We started by opening up our music nights to families this past fall, and for the first time, we are offering 2 Family Immersion Series starting January 2020! Ages 8+. See a complete list of our Upcoming Classes here.

Welp, there you have it! Our Spanish Alive #2020Goals. What are your goals for the new year? Would love to hear from you!