About me

Hi, my name is Vanessa Vento and I am a Spanish teacher on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. This is my 15th year teaching Spanish and my students (this year) are seventh and eighth graders, who have Spanish class daily for 55 minutes. I teach in one of four K-8 schools on the island and I have approximately 70 students. I love teaching Spanish at this level because I enjoy witnessing their transformation as they experiment with the language, take risks, and start to make sense of the language. As a non-native speaker, Spanish was very difficult for me when I started studying it in 7th grade so I really enjoy helping students persevere. As hard as it was for me initially, Spanish was also my first love so watching students make connections and begin to "get it" is truly an honor.
I am forty-two years old and my boyfriend and I have two dogs, but no children. I love to be outside so living on Martha's Vineyard is perfect for me. In 2000, I moved here from New York City in need of a change, I sure got one! I am much more suited to living here than I ever was to living in the city. I majored in Spanish in college, but not in education so I kind of fell into teaching. Once I started I loved it and haven't looked back since. I grew up in NJ, went to Loyola College in Baltimore (Bachelor of Arts in Spanish), and recently completed a Master's of Science in Teaching Spanish though Nova University in Florida.
I saw this Elevate course advertised on an ACTFL site and thought I would try it out. I do not have a lot of experience with using technology in my foreign language classes and I look forward to learning a lot in this course. I haven't taken a course since I finished my Master's two years ago and as someone who likes to keep up to date on current practices, I hope to learn some new skills to take back to my classroom.
Thanks for reading about me and I am sorry that my blog isn't fancy. It's my first one!