Madelyn Parker, English/Spanish senior, will go from studying language to teaching it.
Parker recently was accepted into the English Opens Doors Program, a job through the United Nations development program and the Chilean ministry of education, to teach English in Chile. She will teach from August to December.
Parker said she won’t know where she will be located until she arrives in Chile.
“It’s exciting, but also it’s one of those programs where you have no idea what’s going to happen,” she said.
Parker said the program appealed to her because she didn’t have to be certified by the TESOL program.
“I have recently just really wanted to be fluent in Spanish,” she said. “I’ve been losing my skill recently so I thought I needed to find some way to use my skills on a daily basis, and this ended up being that opportunity.”
The interview process was unique, she said.
“It was weirdly casual and intense at the same time,” she said. “They had a Google Doc as the application, which was kind of weird, but then they had a Skype interview. And after that it was just ‘get your visa and we will check up on you in a couple months.’”
Parker started studying Spanish in high school. She picked up her double major after a study abroad trip to Spain in spring 2017.
“The funny thing is that when you’re learning from the book, you’re not actually learning how to communicate with it,” she said. “When I went to Spain, there was a two month learning curve for me to catch up with. It’s a lot like a muscle. If you’re not working that muscle every day, after a while you lose it.”
Parker studied in Spain through the University Study Abroad Consortium. Her host university was Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (King Juan Carlos University).
In addition to studying Spanish, Parker is also on the writing track in her English degree.
Parker said the English department at OCU helped her build up her resume for after graduation.
“There was a poet who came to campus, and the nice thing about being a senior is that the department asks you to do a lot of things, so I helped out with the interview process of Alberto Rios,” she said. “It’s something really amazing that the English department has given to me that I can put on my resume.”
Parker also is working to publish her chapbook of poetry.
“I’m in creative writing for editing and publishing, and I’m taking what I did for my capstone and preparing it for publication to send out to presses,” Parker said.
Robert Roensch, associate professor of English, teaches Parker’s English class.
“She has a beautiful, natural ability with language and she is an incredibly hard worker,” Roensch said. “Advice I’d give her? Just keep being who she is.”
Parker advised underclassmen not to worry so much about the college experience.
“I remember being a freshman and being really afraid of being able to do what I wanted to do and making decisions for myself,” she said. “The truth is that you don’t really learn how to do that, you just kind of accept the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing and no one else really does either.”
Great ! Parker’s story in Spain was amazing , As a biligual student he knows now the importance of being biligual for looking a job . Which is why we recommend Spanish for business for our students ,