SEM Welcomes Señora Denny
By: Grace D.
“We are really lucky that we speak English because it does open up a lot of the world to us, but it’s only a fraction of the people, movies, music, and books of the world that you have access to. The more foreign languages you learn, the more life you can experience,” Señora Denny, our new Spanish teacher, said during our interview. During our time together, she talked about her love for language, her journey to becoming a teacher, her teaching philosophy, and her hopes for her future at SEM.
Sra. Denny grew up not too far from Buffalo. She lived in Syracuse until college when she moved to Rochester to attend university. Her journey to teaching was by no means a uniform one. She grew up with many different passions and career dreams but ended up finding a love for teaching. She says, “I did have a lot of cool language teachers that I thought I wanted to be like. They were like role models for me.” With her love for learning languages and helping educate others, she found her way to teaching.
She began her career through tutoring. “I loved the opportunity to have a one-on-one better understanding of what students need.” This was the spark that led her to want to continue teaching and helping others learn different languages. One of her friends recommended she take a job teaching Latin, French, and Spanish. Although hesitant at first, she loved being able to share her appreciation for different languages with her students and get a better understanding of what students need to efficiently and enjoyably learn.
Sra. Denny came to SEM when the stars aligned and both a Spanish teacher and school counselor position opened, making it possible for both her and her husband Mr. Colosimo to work at SEM.
She teaches a range of Spanish classes from Introduction to Spanish, to Advanced classes. She also offers different electives each trimester. Last trimester, she taught an elective on Spanish film and this trimester she is teaching Spanish Art and History.
Her classes are focused on comprehensible input, which is a technique that helps students learn a deeper knowledge of the language through reading and listening versus memorization. With this technique, she tries to include activities to make classes more interesting and engaging for students. Often classes are filled with charades, songs, and even skits, which present information in an engaging way so students are not only learning but enjoying the process of doing so.
Outside of life in the classroom, Sra. Denny dances, hikes, goes to the zoo and other wildlife sanctuaries, and plays trivia games. One of her goals for her time at SEM is for every student taking the full three years of Spanish to feel bilingual and able to speak proficiently and confidently outside of the classroom and with different people. She also aims to create a club for sign language, encouraging students to get interested in learning all different types of languages.
When asked what her favorite part about SEM was, she replied: “I really think the students are great. I have worked with many students but at SEM they are creative, kind, [and] creating a great atmosphere to be in.”
Grace Dolan
Grace is a sophomore at SEM. Some of her interests are reading, playing tennis, and listening to Taylor Swift.
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