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Award-winning German teacher Cindie Kelly helps |
By PAMELA GOULD
With 90 minutes of instruction time, Cindie Kelly's German 1 class moves at a fast pace.
She begins with a review in question-and-answer format that enables students in her Massaponax High School classroom to practice sentence structure and vocabulary.
She shifts to the smartboard to give them some new words.
Then she shifts to what looks a bit like "Simon Says" as students stand up and act out the words, making arm and body movements that correspond to them.
Next, students are introduced to a story about young Elisa and her crazy Onkel Hackett, a man known for wielding a destructive axe.
Then they get to draw the story in cartoon-block style and write out what's transpiring in each block.
And, of course, it's all done in German.
FROM A LINE OF TEACHERS
Teaching and languages are in Kelly's blood.
Her grandparents, an aunt and uncle all were educators, most at the college level.
Her mother is fluent in French and German. And Kelly's first language was Spanish, starting out life with a Mexican nanny.
So it should have been no surprise that she forged the two family traits into a career as a foreign language teacher.
In fact, there was little time for suspense.
"I've always known I wanted to teach," Kelly said. "When I was 3 years old, I asked Santa Claus for a chalkboard."
Then she assembled her "class," lining up her stuffed animals in rows of chairs.
Today's teaching has come a long way from chalkboards and students sitting silently in long, neat rows--especially in Kelly's classroom.
Kelly, who has taught 16 years of French and 26 years of German since graduating from Mary Washington College, believes in kinetic learning.
She works the room, getting every student involved. And she keeps them moving physically and mentally.
She started employing TPR--Total Physical Response--about eight years ago. TPR is a teaching method developed in the 1970s. Two decades later, storytelling was added to the mix, all of it an attempt to enhance the ability to learn a new language.
Kelly switched teaching tactics after enrollment started dropping. She asked students what they wanted out of studying a foreign language, and realized TPR could help meet the goal.
"They all wanted to know how to speak it," she said.
Now she has the biggest German program in Spotsylvania County, Principal Joe Rodkey said.
KEEPING HER YOUNG
Kelly, who also chairs the school's World Languages Department, "has the full package," Rodkey said.
She's got the academic degrees, experience and technology, but he said the biggest factor in her success is that students love her.
She cares about them and she makes studying the language fun and "she's recognized around the state as one of the premier German educators," he said.
Kelly recently received the Duden Award, a statewide honor that recognizes outstanding achievement in German instruction.
Frau Kelly, as she's called, not only teaches the language from the beginner level to AP, she also introduces students to German culture, including the country's food, clothing, literature, arts and history.
And she tries to bring it all alive, showing samples of the clothing or taking students on outings to places such as a German restaurant or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Her work with students doesn't end with the classroom. She also sponsors the National German Honor Society, has taught several years at the Governor's German Academy and always has one project or another going.
"I do have days when I'm really, really tired and I wonder how much longer I can do this, but they keep me young," she said. "Kids are a lot of fun."
Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972
Email: pgould@freelancestar.com
