Spanish teacher feels at home in front of students

Anthony Almeida, now a Spanish teacher at Central, had a variety of college experiences. He first attended the University of Iowa thinking he wanted to be pre-med. However, that didn’t work out for him so he left Iowa to spend time taking classes at Iowa Western and UNO. He began to really enjoy his language classes, so he eventually enrolled at UNO as a Spanish major. He graduated a few years after taking more classes and working.

Almeida spent three more years studying Spanish at UNL. He originally wanted to get a P.H.D. to become a college professor, but he earned his masters and stopped after to become a teaching assistant. He helped teach underclassmen as a part of his tuition payment. Doing this made the program more affordable and gave him good first teaching experience.

“At first I was nervous, and didn’t really want to teach, but after the first year, I realized I liked working with students a lot more than doing research and writing essays about literature,” Almeida says.

After he graduated from UNL, he worked a few years to save up money before going to school at Creighton University to get his degree in education. He needed a degree to teach in Nebraska and thought Creighton’s accelerated program was the best option.

While trying to earn his degree, he became a student teacher here at Central. Almeida mentions that “after that semester, I knew I wanted to teach here.”

Almeida is now a full-time Spanish teacher here. This is his second year teaching Spanish 1-2 and 3-4. He loves Central because of how well it prepares students for college, whereas the small high school he attended did not.

He gets a wide variety of students in his classes, so he uses some teaching techniques to help all students learn on the same level. Almeida’s teaching style is pulled directly from his experience as a teaching assistant at Lincoln, making his classes almost as advanced as college classes.

He is very energetic when he teaches and assigns students to write group skits to recite in Spanish or projects on Spanish speaking countries and their cultures. Almeida also likes to have fun by playing Kaboom to incorporate tricky Spanish phrases, or playing Pictionary where students have to draw pictures for a Spanish vocabulary word. He likes to switch up the course so his students aren’t bored by just bookwork, notes, and worksheets so they can really engage and learn Spanish.

Almeida says he could’ve landed a teaching job anywhere, but he feels lucky that a job opportunity popped up at Central. He plans on continuing to teach Spanish here.