One of the many teachers in Hamburg Area High School that can speak another language is Frau Stevens who teaches German. She undoubtedly knows how to speak, read, and write in German, along with a bit of French and Spanish to get herself in trouble and have a little fun. Frau Stevens grew up hearing German and Pennsylvanian Dutch from her grandparents, and she learned German in Hamburg Area High School, as well as Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and Philipps-Universitaet in Marburg, Germany. She also listened to German music and practiced her German by role-playing out different situations that would happen in real life. Nowadays, Frau Stevens improves her German by watching movies.
Another teacher in Hamburg Area High School who also speaks another language is Mr. Hetrich. He speaks a bit of French to order himself a meal, but he cannot have a full conversation with another person due to the fact that his French is broken. Mr. Hetrich used to speak French periodically when fishing up in Quebec, Canada. He learned French in Wilson High School in Whitfield, Pennsylvania because it was required to take a two-year language course to go to college. He took French because it interested him the most. No one in his family speaks another language; they only speak English.
Mr. Reinhart is one of the teachers whose only language is English, but he wants to learn Spanish because he has some students who only speak and write in Spanish, and he would like to provide them the opportunity to learn as well as the students who speak English. Mr. Reinhart would like to use Babbel and a program called Rosetta Stone to help him learn.
Rosetta Stone is a program where they provide and send their users kits that are filled with CD’s, pamphlets, and music in a different language to help their users to learn another language.
Mrs. Herman is one of the teachers at Hamburg Area High school who knows a few words and phrases in Spanish. She cannot necessarily be understood by most Spanish speakers, but can be interpreted correctly most of the time. Mrs. Herman would like to re-learn Spanish to be better understood by her Spanish speaking students. Along with re-learning Spanish, Mrs. Herman would like to learn Polish and Lithuanian because her grandparents both periodically spoke Lithuanian and Polish. The program she would most probably use is Rosetta Stone.
Mrs. Herman got taught Spanish in Marian High School in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania because she thought that Spanish would serve her better use in the future than French. There were three teachers that taught Mrs. Herman Spanish, but she only remembers two: Sister Marita de Lourdes and Mrs. Heffelfinger. The three teachers guided her and her classmates through various exercise lessons, some which stuck with her. Another person who speaks Spanish in her family is her husband Mr. Herman, who uses Spanish at his job fairly often.
Mrs. Bucheit is another teacher who does not speak another language, but she would like to help out her students who speak Spanish because more Spanish speaking students are moving into the district, and it would benefit her and her students if she spoke Spanish. The only way to get around this language barrier is for her to use Google Translate to speak with other students. Mrs. Bucheit did take four years of German in high school and 2 semesters of German in college.
Mrs. McCarthy is also another teacher who only speaks English, but used to take Spanish and French in high school and continued to take French in college. She also took an ASL (American Sign Language) class with some HEP students years ago. However since Mrs. McCarthy did not actively use these languages, she forgot how to say them and sign the words. She can understand French and Spanish writing due to visiting both France and Spain a few times. One of Mrs. McCarthy’s nieces minored in French in college.
One of the many languages that Mrs. McCarthy would like to re-learn is sign language because there are not many people who know sign language. The only apps to communicate with speaking users who speak another language are translation apps. For deaf people, they either have to lip read, write, text, or sign to others.
If people want to learn sign language, they can go to the app store and download an app called ‘SignSchool.’ SignSchool is an app where they show videos of people doing hand signs along with the words.
