Connie Schmitt Email & Phone Number

Helotes, Texas, United States

Helped locating reliable insurance carriers for diverse clients to protect their assets and manage risksManaged a portfolio of clients to guide them to purchase various insurance products for their companiesAssisted with processing insurance policies and maintaining customer recordsEnsured that policy requirements were fulfilled, including completion of the appropriate ACORD forms to put insurance policies in place, renew or cancel them.

2020-2021 was a non-traditonal school year! We all had to adapt to a "new" normal due to the effects of COVID-19. We all had to navigate our hybrid or remote classes, and tried to overcome the many challenges of this new way of teaching and learning. Preparing asynchronous and/or synchronous lessons for remote & in-person students required a lot of effort and creativity. Being flexible and adaptable became key skills to manage change. In my situation, teaching Spanish to English speakers also required to look at other aspects of the learning process and measure the impact that technology integration might have on issues such as student engagement and motivation, ability to embrace different learning styles, or ability to facilitate learner's self-reflection and become lifelong learners, among others.

Amazing experience! Collaborated closely with my teacher partner. I taught SLA and social studies in Spanish and my partner taught math and science. Students learned academic content while building language and culture competence in a different language.

I worked at a school full time through out the year and at Pearson during the summer. I worked in various different projects like DRA Reading, Spanish filed tests, STAAR tests, to name a few. I evaluated students' responses to tests using a scoring guideline provided by Pearson after participating in various trainings and calibrating exercises.

Teaching refugees was one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs I've ever had! The district had a good ESL program in place but it was not prepared to face a high influx of refugees and we had to start writing a syllabus for this program and teaching it at the same time. I was one teacher teaching 5 subjects to the same group of students and had 3 different grade levels at the same time in the same classroom. These students brought valuable background knowledge, experiences and skills to build upon but it took time to help them build enough vocabulary in order for them to be able to share all that with us. It took me a while to build a close relationship with my students and lower their affective filter. We had kids that were experiencing school for the first time so before teaching academic content, I had to start by modeling how to grab a pencil and help them with the notion of space. Where to start writing on a piece of paper or how to copy from the board to mention a few. We had students that spoke languages with different alphabets, completely different writing systems and some of the students could speak it but not read it or write it. Some of our students had lived in refugee camps for years and had experienced traumatic events in their home countries and had left loved ones behind knowing that they might not see them ever again. So in order to help these students we had to address all their needs. We had to address the student as a whole. Differences in the students’ literacy skills and educational backgrounds were main factors to consider but we had to help them adjust to new customs and culture, too. They needed counseling, food and health care to be able to focus in school. The school district, specialists and the school staff in general made a tremendous effort to meet the needs of our refugee students. Hard work paid off. At the end of the year, we were amazed by our refugee students' social and academic language improvement.

As an ESL teacher, my goal was to teach my students to read, speak, listen and write in English, so they could be successful in on-level classes in all academic areas and share the American culture with them, so they could have a sense of belonging at the same time. I created materials by mirroring the English curriculum while creating with district specialist our own ESL curriculum simultaneously. I strived to reach all students by building a strong relationship with them and giving the whole class a sense of belonging and a risk-free environment to take chances and explore new ideas. I also established strong relationships with my students' families by creating multiple opportunities for parents and other loved ones to participate in their child's education and school life. Meet the Teacher Night/ Open House, ESL Night or daily interactions like phone calls, e-mails, weekly newsletters helped bring students, family, teachers and administrators closer in positive ways and sent the message to students that learning is important. During these years, I also spearheaded the Comal ISD iPod Project and led the district in best practices of the use of technology in the ESL classroom. Students' reading proficiency improved tremendously through the use of IPods and the advantage of being able to take them home, record and track their reading daily!

Thesis Pending, English

Moved back to the States before I could finish my last class and my thesis.

Bachelor Of Arts In Education - Baed - Concentration In English -, Teaching English As A Second Or Foreign Language/Esl Language Instructor