Andres Valencia is a Spanish teacher at LHS who teaches Spanish I and III. He loves spending time with his wife and son, as well as volunteering at his local church. He enjoys playing his saxophone at various concerts and church functions outside of school hours. Valencia studied music education in college and spent a year in Thailand where he taught music and English to children from K-6. He hopes that more non-Spanish-speaking students enroll in classes and join the Spanish Club.

1. What intrigued you to learn more about the Spanish language that you grew up speaking?

As a native Spanish speaker, what intrigues me the most about learning and teaching the Spanish language is how I have the freedom to explore the Hispanic culture. I get the chance to prepare interesting lessons about Latin American countries and Spain using a variety of instructional tools and teaching techniques. I get to share about where and how people live in Spanish-speaking nations. And last, I help students increase their communications skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking) in a foreign language, which is becoming more and more necessary in the global community of the 21st century.

2. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I enjoy spending time with my wife and my son. I love serving my community through my church family, The Bridge Community Church. I enjoy running and playing sports with others, and I also love playing music and singing.

3. What is your favorite part about being a Spanish teacher?

My favorite part about being a Spanish teacher is not really the fact that I teach Spanish. My favorite part is that I get to teach and interact with students.

4. What did you like doing as a kid? Any childhood memories?

As a child, I really enjoyed reading fiction and biographies. I always had a great time watching documentaries about nature, history, and archeology. I played a lot of Super Mario Bros. And of course, I loved playing soccer. A childhood memory that stands out is immigrating from Colombia, South America to the United States. I was thirteen when I moved, and it was very tough. I am so grateful we were able to immigrate as a family, and that we met so many wonderful people along the way who helped us adjust to all the changes in our lives.

5. What’s one thing not many people know about you?

Not many people know that I actually did not study Spanish in college. I studied music education at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. While in college, I was a Spanish teaching assistant but did not have the opportunity or time to take any of the Spanish courses from the university. I took French instead and attended dozens of performances and music seminars where my classmates, teachers, and guest musicians sang in many foreign languages.

6. What is one interesting fact about you?

I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for a year. I taught music and English to K-6 students and had the chance to learn a little bit of Thai while I was there.

7. Do you have any favorite foods or snacks?

I love Mexican food. It is my favorite food to eat. Before coming to the United States, I had no idea what a tortilla was. It was not until I was 13 years old that I got to try Mexican food. A few months after we had immigrated to the U.S., my dad took me out for tacos in San Fernando Valley, California. I think my favorite part about Mexican food is how salt, fat, acid, and heat come together to give you such a unique culinary experience.

8. If you weren’t a teacher what would you be doing right now?

I would be a full-time musician because that is what I studied in college. I used to play saxophone every day and played music for different types of concerts and church events on a regular basis.

9. Any interesting stories that you would like to share for students and staff to know?

When I was in Thailand, I got to ride an elephant. When you ride an elephant, you see everything from a different perspective. It is higher than riding on horseback, and even though the elephant seems to move slower because the animal is so much bigger, it covers a lot of ground with each step.

10. How did you learn the Spanish language?

I was born in Colombia, and Spanish is our first language there. I learned the Spanish language by interacting with my family, friends, teachers at school, and everyone else around me. I am a native Spanish speaker, and English is my second language. When I first arrived in the United States in 2002, I did not have mastery of the English language. This is when I began learning English more in-depth in school and sought out as many people as I could to practice my conversational skills.

Additional Comments: We hope more students that don’t speak Spanish take our courses and participate in the Spanish Club. Also, we invite any native Spanish speaker to take a placement test and continue learning how to read and write in Spanish with Mr. LeFaure and I.