My name is Diala De La Rosa Aquino. I have a B.A. in languages at Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (UASD). I did a specialization in ESL . Actually, I am a first grade teacher in a bilingual school so I have the opportunity to teach in English as well as spanish. I take part in the intervention program that the school offers to the student who are below the level in both languages, I also give tutoring to those students who are at risk level.

At the beginning of this year, I had the opportunity to teach spanish to adults for 3 months. I have to mention that I work with students from a wide variety of racial, ethnic, economic backgrounds, and ages. While teaching, I encouraged the students to speak to each other in the target language. When listening to their pronunciation, my aim was not for them to achieve a perfect imitation of a native accent, but simply to get them to pronounce accurately enough to be easily and comfortably intelligible to other students. I introduced them to listening to the target language by presenting a video prior to each lesson and playing recorded songs. I always provided the students with some idea of what they were going to hear and gave them a small task to do that was related to the lesson. This helped to raise their motivation and interest. In my lesson plans, I tried to include some activity for each intelligence level to support the learning of every student.