AP Spanish Class Participates in
Video Conference
Technology can often be a useful tool to enhance learning. Witness a recent experience enjoyed by an Advanced Placement Spanish class at Huntington High School. Students participated in a video conference with a class at Egg Harbor Township High School in New Jersey and derived many benefits from the session.
"My AP Spanish class has a wonderful experience practicing the target language with their peers from New Jersey," Huntington foreign language teacher Mercy Peña said.
The two classes participated in the exercise during first period. "Students had previously exchanged e-mail correspondence with one another through some e-pal writing," Mrs. Peña explained. "The video conference was a follow-up activity to the e-pal exchanges and a way to see their distant peers in an innovative and active way."
Students asked one another questions in Spanish related to their academics, college acceptances, hobbies, school sports and goals, as well as favorite celebrities and TV shows. "Christian Carrion even asked his e-pal why he hadn't responded to his last e-mail," Mrs. Peña said. "The day after the video conference, Christian got an email response from his e-pal."
Huntington computer technician Michael Tudisco helped make it all possible. "I am thankful Mike for helping out with all the technical matters of setting up this distant learning conference," Mrs. Peña said. "Technology is a great way to make language come alive in the classroom."
The participating Huntington students included Sami Aiman, Joel Aparicio, Christian Carrion, Krista Castillo, Kaja Coraor, Sandra Duarte-Zavala, Carolyn Fante, Carlos Lemus, Jeffrey Moreira, Luisa Quintanilla, David Stillman, Jeffrey Sun and Laura Velasquez.
"My AP students also have regular assignments on my e-Board, where they listen to news podcasts and read authentic news articles from various Spanish speaking countries," Mrs. Peña said. Then they record their analysis of what they have heard or do an oral presentation in class about the news articles they have read. These synthesizing skills which help them prepare for the AP exam, include critical analyses of actual audio reports and news articles."