As a high school student, he was inspired by his Spanish teacher’s love for languages. Now, Spanish teacher Timothy Allen strives to encourage his students in the same way.
Allen (a polyglot fluent in English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic) gained exposure in languages through study abroad programs. His travels intensified his admiration for the languages and cultures he encountered.
“My high school teacher got me involved in a program to go to Spain and I just fell in love with it,” Allen said. “When I went to college, I was originally going to double-major in Spanish and biology. I ended up majoring in Spanish with a minor in linguistics, but I was really interested in languages, so I decided to take another language: Arabic.”
At the time, Arabic was a significant language in U.S. culture following the events of September 11. Initially, he planned on completing a master’s degree in Spanish, but he decided to complete it in Arabic instead.
“I won a scholarship to study in Jordan for the summer,” Allen said. “It was an intense program where we were learning for about eight to nine hours a day at the university. After that, I decided to do a master’s degree in Arabic because I wanted to study something different that was not a European language.”
Some other programs he participated in included spending a semester in Madrid during his senior year of college, where he participated in classes with native Spanish speakers. In graduate school, he studied in the American University in Cairo and then two years later, he won another scholarship to go to Morocco.
“Participating in these programs and just learning languages has shaped my personality so much that I would never change that,” Allen said. “It has made me able to understand different people’s perspectives and positions because I have all these backgrounds that I can compare to.”
Out of all the languages Allen has studied, his top two are Japanese and Spanish. Although he is not fluent in Japanese, he is fascinated by the complex writing system and characters.
“I find the language so beautiful when it all comes together,” Allen said. “I love learning the kanji, which are Chinese characters used in Japanese. There are thousands of them you have to learn, but I find it is a really good exercise. It forces you to work hard and be a serious student.”
Throughout most of his career, Allen has been a high school teacher. While he has taught many languages like English, French and Arabic, Spanish is the first language he learned and one of his favorite languages to this day.
“I really love the Spanish language and I think that there are so many countries that speak it, whether you go to Spain, Argentina or Cuba,” Allen said. “They just have different cultures, cuisines and literature. I find that the Spanish speaking world has produced so many interesting films and I love Spanish music as well.”
This school year, Allen hopes to make his students more enthusiastic about learning Spanish. While he plans on challenging them, it is so they expand their vocabulary and knowledge.
“My goal is to make class exciting and I want them to enjoy learning a language,” Allen said. “However, I am still going to push them. We are not going to sit around and learn basic words like taco and enchilada, but actually learn thousands of words by the end of the year.”
