On Sept. 20, Spanish teacher Patricia Leonard welcomed Willa Boothe as a student teacher. Boothe just graduated from Penn State University.

Boothe started teaching the morning classes off and on. When the second semester started, she began teaching every class.

“I absolutely loved being at Altoona Junior High School. Everyone was so welcoming, the teachers, the administration and the students,” Boothe said.

Leonard also continued to help the students as Boothe was teaching. They communicated with each other by speaking Spanish. Leonard enjoyed seeing the students’ progress.

“I feel that this is a great opportunity for students to learn from a different perspective. Students can see first hand that if they invest their time and effort learning a second language they can become proficient. This knowledge will open many doors and opportunities for them,” Leonard said.

Ninth grader Carly Mann won the ninth grade Spanish award at the award ceremony. She enjoyed having Boothe in class to help her better understand the second language.

“Sentorita Boothe provided our class with a new perspective on learning, and she implemented a lot of new and fun learning strategies that we now use in class all of the time,” Mann said.

Boothe had many opportunities at Penn State while studying Spanish. She got the chance to attend Las Fallas Valencia. It is a popular festival in Spain where there are firework shows and massive figures that get burned at the end of the festival. It is from March 15-19. Boothe taught the students about many things that she learned in Spain.

She taught students family, clothing, conjugating verbs, demonstrative adjectives, possessive adjectives and direct object pronouns.

“Every day we used the student’s Chromebooks to learn Spanish. I loved being able to use technology in the classroom and noticed my students learning more and more every day,” Boothe said.

The students said “adios” to Boothe on April 26. They celebrated with a “fiesta” (party), got to eat cookies and competed with the other classes in a game of GimKit.

Mann believes that it is harder to get one on one help now that Boothe is gone, since there is only one teacher.

“I noticed my students Spanish comprehension grow so much during my time at Altoona. I was so impressed with how much my students learned. I was so sad to leave AAJHS, and I hope that all my students are continuing to grow in their Spanish knowledge,” Boothe said.