As a high school student in Sr. Johnson’s Spanish classes at Warren High School in Monmouth, Illinois, in the 90s, I never dreamed that one day I would be leading the region’s largest bilingual program - let alone be bilingual myself!
I was one who entered college - Monmouth College - thinking that I would proficiency out of taking Spanish because I had taken 4 years of Spanish in high school. Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for me so I thought at the time), I had to take a semester of Spanish to fulfill the requirements of the college. The expression to describe this experience would be “me cayó el 20,” which loosely translates to “it finally all makes sense”. All of the lessons that I had receptively and expressively experienced had finally morphed into understanding how Spanish “worked.” The many lessons focusing on vocabulario, los cognados, and verb conjugations finally made sense during this second semester of my freshman year of college.
At the same time in Monmouth, Spanish-speaking families were moving into the area. For my practicum I was placed in classrooms where there would be one or two Spanish-speaking students because of my “Spanish” abilities - which in hindsight were better than a monolingual English speaker but not at a very high level.
These classroom experiences along with a Spanish professor, Dr. Susan Holm, were instrumental in what would lead to my career in bilingual education in Beardstown.
During the second semester of my junior year I was the only student in the Spanish literature class, and Dr. Holm nurtured me and encouraged me as my conversational and my writing skills were rapidly progressing towards a high level of proficiency.
She encouraged me to pursue some authentic practice of Spanish, and that summer I experienced as close as I would get to a “semester abroad” as I spent the summer in Tyler, Texas. In Texas I volunteered in the schools for their summer school program and in a prenatal clinic serving as the interpreter between the provider and patients. I learned a lot about pregnancy that summer as well as improving my verbal Spanish.
I continued my studies in elementary education and Spanish my senior year, and because of my summer experiences in Texas and in student teaching in Galesburg, I could see how bilingual education could be something that would be my career.
However, I decided to go a different route - graduating at a time when it was difficult to obtain a teaching job - and I took a teaching position at a private school in Beardstown. At the same time that Spanish-speaking families were moving to Monmouth, Spanish-speaking families were also moving to Beardstown.
It would take 10 years before I made the decision to move to teaching at Gard Elementary in Beardstown where I would be hired as a TBE (transitional bilingual education) teacher. This happened after I worked one summer in Beardstown’s Migrant Education Summer School.
Surprisingly even though I had done very little with my Spanish skills since graduation 10 years earlier, it was kind of like “es pan comido." It was a piece of cake, and those receptive and expressive skills came fairly naturally with the support of colleagues who encouraged me and gave me opportunities to use my language skills as a bilingual teacher.
The next 11 years gave me lots of opportunities to build my proficiency as a dual language teacher. Early on, I can remember writing down everything that I was going to say to parents at Parent/Teacher conferences for fear that I would sit down with them and forget how to say what I needed to say in Spanish. More than once I heard from a parent, “My child said that you spoke Spanish, but I didn’t believe them. I guess they were right!” My favorite title to hear besides “Mom” is “Maestra” which I frequently hear as I am out and about in Beardstown.
Since 2019, I have been the Language Acquisition Administrator for the Beardstown school district. We currently have 865 students who are classified as English Learners who come from all over the world. The majority of these students do speak Spanish, but we also have students who speak French, Haitian Creole, and about 17 other languages. I am blessed to work with colleagues, students, and families with whom I daily communicate with in Spanish.
I think of the last sentence of my “Senior Thought and Belief” paper that I wrote back in 1994.“I hope one day to be able to make a difference in the lives of bilingual people." I truly believe that dream has been fulfilled in this late-bloomer bilingual.
Tammee Petersen is the Language Acquisition Administrator for Beardstown Community Unit School District 15.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of TSPR or its license holder, Western Illinois University.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.