Amparo Navarrete, recruitment program coordinator of the College of Arts & Sciences, is currently providing a new program for faculty and staff. She is teaching them Spanish in a class that meets every Tuesday and Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. The program is called Conversational Spanish sack lunch for PVAMU Community/Faculty & Staff. Navarrete says that the goal of the class is to bring the community, faculty, and students together giving them the opportunity to learn and be sensitive to the culture. There are 20 tutors recruited by Navarrete who will work within the faculty schedule. She also teaches from a CD previously transcribed for the class making the language easier to understand while the lesson is being taught.
Navarrete uses audio and text in her methods of teaching. She translates text into English and the class responds in Spanish and to ensure each student’s productivity she challenges individually. Navarrete performs this job charging no fee.
In class sessions, the support among teacher and students for one another is remarkable. When asked what’s enjoyed most about the class besides learning Annette Bowdre replied, “When looking at a peer who has learned many languages it encourages and makes me feel like I can learn one language.” Another said, “The bonding of the faculty, in a learning environment, is a rewarding experience opposed to being among each other at work.”
However, Navarrete’s concerns do stretch further than teaching Spanish. She explained her plans to make a CD teaching English to those with other languages as their first, in which the rights would contribute to the university. When interviewed, Navarrete’s key words were problem and solution, development of leaders, and circle of love.
After receiving a bachelor of arts degree, double majoring in business administration and Spanish medieval literature from Kean University, Union, New Jersey, and a master’s degree in counseling from Prairie View A&M University, Navarrete has contributed with her education, enthusiasm, interpersonal and bilingual skills in the outreach and growing of institutions that place a high value on their clients. In her 31 years of experience in the United States, Navarrete has dealt with human relations and development. However in the past 21 years in Texas, she has contributed in the areas of community and leadership development, higher education opportunities with special emphasis on grass roots community groups offering educational programs in English and Spanish.
Navarrete encourages those interested to experience this cultural gift to the community as she focuses on long and short term goals, developing leaders, creation of new leaders, development of conscious citizens in several rural and urban communities, teaching English and Spanish as second languages, creation of non-profit organizations, development of executive and advisory boards for community organizations, development of task forces and coalition building, information dissemination, strategic planning, coordination of development programs, programs design, curriculums and other materials translationed to Spanish, behavior modification training, public relations, public speaking, and UNITY.