U of A Graduates Excel in Teaching Foreign Languages

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Ellen Rainey

Participating in professional associations and winning awards is not so much about the personal recognition as University of Arkansas alumna Ellen Rainey sees it.

A Spanish teacher at Har-Bar High School in Springdale, Rainey represented Arkansas at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in Columbus, Ohio, last fall after receiving the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association award for 2015 Teacher of the Year.

"What I learned at Central States and through the whole process of creating the huge portfolio I had to prepare was that there is not a winner from this," Rainey said. "It made me think about teaching and my teaching, in particular. I read all the bios of other people, and I thought this is about all promoting world languages. We have an obligation to promote world languages, bilingual literacy and biculturalism.

"I want to try to be a leader because of what others before me have done," she continued. "It's my turn to pass things on and help the next people coming up."

Rainey, who earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish from the U of A, has mentored students in the Master of Arts in Teaching program of the College of Education and Health Professions since 1996. She has been a Spanish teacher for 23 years and has taught at Har-Ber High since it opened in 2005. Har-Ber has 10 teachers of world languages.

"I majored in Spanish in college but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do," Rainey said. "Dr. Margaret Clark (professor emerita) got me going in teaching. I didn't grow up thinking I wanted to be a teacher. Now, I wouldn't do anything else."

Teaching has changed a lot since she started, Rainey said, with higher expectations placed on both students and teachers. Technology also plays a much bigger role in teaching and learning, and her M.A.T. interns help with that aspect.

"They are constantly hearing the newest, latest, greatest theory and practice, and I get to see them try new ideas and help them come up with things," she said. "They are always more tech savvy than me. It's definitely two-way learning. It is not about knowing everything. You never do. The term lifelong learner may be a cliché but it's so right. It can't just be like, I'm there, I'm done. (The M.A.T. students) really keep me on my toes."

Two graduates of the M.A.T. program were also honored recently. Kristen Novotny, a Spanish teacher at Springdale High School who chairs the foreign language department, was elected president of the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association.

Celine Simpson, a French teacher at Bentonville High School, was awarded the Secondary School Teacher Prize for Inspiration from the University of Tulsa. She was nominated by one of her former students.

Rainey was Novotny's mentor several years ago, and Simpson got Rainey involved in the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association.