Working...
Welcome to my faculty page! I’m happy you stopped in to learn more. Did you know that bilingual job seekers are 40% more hirable than their monolingual counterparts? Did you also know that Americans who have proficiency in both English and Spanish earn up to 20% more than workers who cannot communicate in those languages? America is a wonderful, thriving place to live and work, but we have some room for improving how we promote and teach foreign languages. Seventy five percent of the world’s population doesn’t know how to speak English, yet our own study of other languages is falling, with only 20% of our students studying a language other than English. I encourage potential students and parents to reach out to me to learn more about our foreign language-learning philosophy here at EHS and how we can align ourselves with a standard of excellence that other schools will strive to imitate.
So, how did I learn Spanish? Have I spoken it my whole life? And, was it easy to learn? Although I was born in Minnesota, my family moved home when I was very young and I went through the Yates Center, Toronto, and Eureka school systems. As a freshman here at EHS, I took Spanish I—in the very classroom I teach. It was my first exposure to the language and was not “love at first sight”, rather a process I learned to accept and respect, and which encouraged me to take the language all four years.
I graduated as a Tornado in 1994, and then headed off to the beautiful city of Manhattan, KS. At Kansas State University, I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Literature in 1999 and then stayed for graduate school, earning a Master of Arts in Spanish & Second-Language Acquisition a few years later. I accepted a full-time faculty position as a college professor and was with Butler Community College until July of 2019, before starting back at my alma mater, EJSHS. At Butler, I also served as Department Chair for Foreign Languages and was the Quiz Team Coach, and in those capacities I learned a lot about articulation from high school to college or a meaningful career.
I am so happy to be back in these halls and anxious to share my love of the Spanish language and rich cultural knowledge I have gained from my own educational experience, which includes various trips abroad and two separate opportunities to live and work in Mexico (1998) and Spain (2000). It truly excites me to work with the caring, dynamic, and capable students who call Eureka home and to learn from and collaborate with Eureka's dedicated faculty and staff. Our educational community is so lucky to have such a great school system and I am thankful to be part of helping our citizens achieve their goals. I look forward to meeting you in the classroom this school year.
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Calisa Marlar-Hall, M.A. Eureka Jr./Sr. High School 815 N. Jefferson St. Eureka, KS 67045 Room: A-105 Phone: 620-583-7428 Extension: 1240 Email: chall@eurekausd389.net |
