Biography+&+Contact+Info.

Parents call me Jennifer Sissell, but in the classroom, I am Doña Sofía ( ** Don ** -yuh So- ** fee ** -uh). The name means "Lady Sofia", with the title being // more // respectful than Señora. Sofía was my Spanish name years ago when I, too, roamed the halls of Northwest as a student.

While attending K-State, I spent my junior year of college studying abroad in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Therefore, I am most familiar with its dialect and culture. I graduated from KSU in May 1999. I earned my Master's in the Art of Teaching from Friends University in May 2004. I earned National Board Certification of Early Adolescents/Young Adults in World Langauges Other Than English in November 2008. I have attended numerous regional and national conferences, including the 2007 National TPRS Conference in Denver, CO and the 2009 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, at which I co-presented with my Northwest colleague, Mrs. Courtney Wilson, on how to use reading as a springboard for teaching culture.

The center of my foreign language teaching philosophy is the most recently developed methodology, TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading & Storytelling). I introduce some new vocabulary using PQA (Personalized Question & Answer), a technique that emphasizes the involvement of each student and helps me get to know them better. Students further practice new vocabulary in a combination of acted & printed stories that include students, or famous people of their choosing, as the main characters. At each level, students will read at least one novel this year //in Spanish!!// Spanish 2 students will read __¿Dónde está Eduardo?__ (__Where is Eduardo?__) and __El viaje Perdido__ (__The Lost Trip__). Spanish 4/5 students will read __Yo, Juan de Pareja__. All students have the option of purchasing a copy of the novel(s) to keep and write in as we read, which some students find helpful.

I immensely enjoy working with adolescents!! I look forward to getting to know each and every one of my students this year. Please feel free to contact me at any time:


 * e-mail: jsissell@usd259.net
 * phone: 542-1510 (Google voice)