What does a Spanish Teacher do?

A Spanish teacher teaches other people how to properly speak, write, read, and understand others in the Spanish language. This often includes making lesson plans, preparing full lesson units, and the day-to-day instruction of students in the fundamentals and advanced aspects of Spanish. A Spanish teacher may work in areas that primarily speak languages other than Spanish and teach it as a foreign language, or work in Spanish-speaking countries teaching Spanish as the primary language. Students in a Spanish classroom may vary in age from young children learning the rules of properly speaking and writing Spanish to adults looking to specialize in the language or to speak it as a secondary language.

The lessons prepared and taught by a Spanish teacher may include fundamental aspects of the language such as gender, noun and verb placement, and proper spelling and punctuation marks. Lessons taught by a Spanish teacher at a higher educational level would include extensive verb conjugation, understanding of grammatical concepts such as verb tenses, and dialectic differences between different regions of Spanish speakers. In a Spanish speaking country such as Mexico or Spain, these lessons would be taught to students as their primary language just as English is taught in the United States.

Much like any other language, the teaching of Spanish involves daily lessons with consistent practice and exposure to the language. In an area where Spanish is the primary language, it can be easier to enforce these rules with real world examples, but this can be difficult in places where Spanish is a foreign language. To make up for this, many Spanish teachers will have to find examples for their students of the language in use through entertainment media like television and movies, music, and literature.

A Spanish teacher would most often be found working in a school at one level or another. In some situations, teachers of Spanish may be found working at other places, such as military bases to help soldiers with their understanding of a secondary language. A Spanish teacher might also work in a private industry, such as a major corporation to help businessmen and businesswomen to conduct transactions with citizens in other countries, or work with actors as dialog coaches to better pronounce Spanish or sound like a person from a specific region. Though there are fewer opportunities for foreign language teachers in the private sector, those who do find a place would likely be paid better than scholastic educators.