1.   Personal and Academic Justification of the Curriculum

The Government of Belize, through the Ministry of Education and Sports (MED), has promoted over the years the teaching of the Spanish Language at Primary and Secondary school levels countrywide, with the objective to fulfill the linguistic needs of all learners. The MED has implemented a variety of pedagogical strategies and teaching resources to strengthen the teaching of Spanish in Belize. Despite the applauded effort, there is always the need for a curriculum and an analytical Spanish program to guide all educators of every secondary school level. The Spanish program promotes a positive outcome for learners to excel in the requirements of the International Spanish Examination, the Caribbean Examination Council Exam, and to develop a wide range of communicative language competences needed to execute tasks in specific circumstances and environments.

As an educator, seeing the need for the implementation of appropriate teaching/learning strategies and content material, it fostered my awareness and the need to cooperate with the education system of Belize by actively participating in the development of a Spanish Curriculum. The Spanish Curriculum contains relevant and useful information for the teaching of Spanish as a second language in every classroom setting with the aim to strengthen educator’s teaching and learning strategies for the mastery of the skills and knowledge of the target language. Fulfilling the linguistic demand of the Belizean society, the curriculum and program’s goal is to strengthen teacher‘s effective Spanish Lesson Planning with the use of student-centered learning activities, which focuses on the use of the language rather than its grammatical structure. Furthermore, the appropriate approaches ensure prompt learning through playful and interactive activities, which motivates all learners to continue learning/acquiring the targeted language.

As a language teaching methods instructor and an active member of the Belizean society, my greatest interest is to standardize the Spanish Language teaching content material for all the Primary and Secondary levels by providing educational equality for all Belizean students. The Spanish Teaching Curriculum guarantees the production of linguistic competent students with the skills and knowledge needed to adapt to this changing world. This knowledge has provided me with the opportunity to effectively work with language teachers stressing on the importance of simplifying the vocabulary level of the target language, creating a learning environment with a low anxiety level, and optimizing emotional preparedness and confidence by engaging the students through dialogue, conversations, and oral presentations. Providing necessary teaching material and strategies will inspire and facilitate the transfer of comprehensive input to students. All educators’ efforts represent the key to open new horizons for the structuring and standardization of the Spanish Program to ensure the future of Belize amongst international competition.