As you walk by room 202, the sound of Spanish music flows through the doorway for all to hear. Walking in, you see the smiling face of new teacher Abigail Hansen, who said she has one major goal as a teacher.
“The smiles and nods and hugs, you know those cross language barriers that it’s just so wonderful that you can actually communicate with somebody,” she said.
Hansen’s passion for communication and connection with others started in1994 when she took her first trip to Mexico while in eighth grade. Traveling to Mexico also ignited her love of travel as she visited Guatemala as a junior in high school, spent a year in Spain in 2001, joined a church organization in Bolivia, and was a tour guide in Costa Rica.
“There’s such a huge group in the United States that speaks Spanish,” she said.
Hansen began her teaching career in 2005 in Billings, where she worked on and off before moving to Great Falls to start teaching at Sacajawea Elementary School with the Gifted and Talented. She transitioned this fall to teaching Spanish 1-2 and 3-4 at CMR. Speaking and teaching mostly Spain Spanish, she said she truly enjoys the CMR students and atmosphere.
Hansen said the way she learned Spanish was by using only a textbook, and she enjoys the way language is taught at CMR- – reading different stories to learn important vocabulary while also allowing students to learn to formulate sentences and phrases correctly and be able to speak, write, listen, and understand the material they are learning.
“To be able to communicate and make mistakes and then learn from that, I think that is going to help kids learn quicker.”
