Presently, I am out in St. Louis, Missouri teaching Spanish at MICDS as well as coaching their 7th and 8th grade FTC robotics team. This spring I will be traveling with a group of our high school students to Argentina as part of an exchange program, and I will also have other opportunities to travel to Spain and Peru with students in the future.

At University of Delaware I was able to explore my interests in Spanish, Hispanic cultures, pedagogy and the sciences, all of which made it easier for me to market myself when going on the job hunt. Particularly important were my experiences living and studying abroad in Spain, Chile and Peru; as well as my experiences student teaching, TAing, and then part-time teaching at Wilmington Friends during my last year of graduate school.

During my time studying Spanish education and second language pedagogy at UD, I was able to learn about theories of second language acquisition and best practices that I was then able to transfer to my lessons at Friends as well as my lessons at MICDS. Here we focus on teaching language within the three modes of communication and according to ACTFL’s standards, for which I received a great foundation and understanding through my pedagogy and education classes while at UD. I also had the pleasure and good fortune of seeing excellent teaching on a daily basis in my Spanish classes, and finding mentors and role models in Dr. Brown and Dr. Cubillos (whether they realized it or not!).

Moreover, this past year I presented a workshop at the Summit for Transformative Learning in St. Louis, which drew teachers from Missouri, Illinois, and Ohio. My workshop focused on scaffolding readings, teaching students how to read and assessing students’ reading abilities. To my surprise, my session was filled with teachers from a variety of disciplines, including foreign languages, history, English, and elementary education.

I have no doubt that my education and the opportunities afforded to me through studying Spanish Education (BA) and Spanish and Pedagogy (MA) at University of Delaware were hugely important in helping get where I am today, and I am so grateful for that!

I graduated with a degree in Spanish studies this past spring. During my time at the University of Delaware, I was a member of the Club Synchronized Skating Team. Synchronized skating, a niche figure skating discipline, has been an integral part of my life since I began my competitive career at the age of 10. While I did not have a concrete post-graduation plan, one thing was for certain: I wanted to further my Spanish speaking abilities. While my education at UD provided me with an extensive background in grammar and literature, I needed to improve my confidence in speaking in a real-world setting … and Spain has a senior-level synchronized skating team. During my senior year, I got the crazy idea that perhaps I could merge my two passions– skating and Spanish. I stopped in Madrid on my way to Granada for winter session and auditioned for the Spanish National Synchronized Skating Team.

In August, I came to Spain on a student visa, which requires 20 hours of class per week at a Spanish language academy. Through these classes, I have earned a C1 Spanish certification. These eight months have given me the opportunity to grow in so many ways. Not only is this my first time living completely on my own, but I am doing so halfway across the world. My team has given me the opportunity to travel for competitions — so far, we have competed in France and the Netherlands. In April we will take part in the World Synchronized Skating Championships in Finland. I never thought I would be competing at the international level, so I am very grateful for this final season of my skating career. While I am sad that my time in Spain is coming to an end soon, I intend to return: I applied to the NALCAP program for the 2025–26 school year, through which I hope to spend a year as an English language assistant in a Spanish school.

Since graduating from the University of Delaware, my path has taken some unexpected turns. When I first moved back to France, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next and felt a little bit lost. I had always loved history and had considered becoming a history teacher, so—somewhat impulsively—I applied for a Licence 3 degree in history and political science at the University of Caen in my hometown. To my surprise and delight, I was accepted. This gave me the opportunity to complete an undergraduate degree in history in just one year.

Catching up wasn’t easy, especially since I hadn’t completed the first two years of the program. But with determination and a lot of hard work, I succeeded and graduated in June 2024. While the experience was incredibly enriching, I realized I was more drawn to teaching French than history.

While searching for a post-grad French teaching program, I discovered the UK government’s bursary program for trainee teachers. The program offers bursaries of £25,000 to £27,000 for those training to teach modern languages—an opportunity also open to international students. It felt like the perfect chance to move back to the UK (my country of birth) and take on a new challenge. I enrolled in a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in modern languages at the University of East London (UEL) in September.

The transition from a small town in Normandy to life in London was an adjustment, but I adapted quickly. After a month of training at UEL, I started working in a secondary school in North London (Enfield). It was a complex, high-need environment: around 60% of students were eligible for pupil premium support, meaning many lived in extreme poverty, and the school provided essentials like uniforms, equipment and meals. The student body was incredibly diverse, with many Turkish, Somali, Albanian, Southeast Asian and Eastern European students of varying religious faiths.

My previous teaching experience was with university students at UD, so it was certainly a transition to managing classrooms of middle-schoolers, but I found my footing by creating engaging, fun French lessons and focusing on building positive relationships. By fostering a supportive and inclusive classroom environment, I was able to make a real difference. I really enjoyed my first placement and didn’t want to leave! I worked in Enfield until March 2025 and am now teaching in another East London school, in Forest Gate. With this second placement, I’ve found I’ve gained confidence and developed strategies which help me create a positive learning environment. I am also teaching Spanish there; it’s my first time teaching it, and I’m really enjoying this new challenge!

It’s been a winding road since UD, but one full of growth, learning and rewarding experiences. If anyone is considering teaching modern languages in the UK, I highly recommend exploring the PGCE bursary program—it’s an amazing opportunity to make an impact and embark on a meaningful career. With the qualified teacher status (QTS), which I will obtain at the end of my PGCE, I will be qualified to work as a French and Spanish teacher in nearly 70 countries.

Soleil Sabalja spent five semesters and three winter sessions studying abroad during her UD career, taking advantage of every opportunity to travel.

Now in her 13th year of teaching, Sabalja aims to infuse global insights at East Side Community High School in New York City, where she develops hands-on climate science programs for students in special education.  

In December 2024 she expanded her worldwide toolkit to include experiences from Antarctica, where she explored the planet’s most remote continent through the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship, a collaboration between Lindblad Expeditions and the National Geographic Society to support pre-K–12 educators and promote geography education.  

She has created a new curriculum based on her trip so her students can share in her experience.

Read this UDaily article for more about her trip to Antarctica and how it took her back to her days at UD.

Studying foreign languages at UD has led me to a lot of places I never expected to visit. It gave me the flexibility, cultural understanding, and language skills to be an effective cultural ambassador and it inspired me to push myself and follow my passion for foreign cultures and languages.

I’ve had the chance to street perform in Ecuador, study tai chi in a monastery, be the only foreigner in a Chinese production of Hairspray, hike thirty miles up and down a mountain while being pursued by monkeys, and, perhaps most importantly, get certified as, “at least moderately attractive or above” during a weekend of modeling in China. Right now I’m in Taiwan teaching English at two rural aboriginal elementary schools as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant.

Aside from making sure they know Justin Bieber isn’t from the US, one of my main goals has been making English come to life in the classroom and use it to accomplish real tasks. Students have found that learning songs, drawing comic books, and running a mock restaurant simulation have been much more effective than passively learning lists of vocabulary and memorizing grammar rules.

I’m especially proud of a “Guess the American” activity where we showed pictures of people from many different ethnicities and had the students guess which ones were from the United States. Trying to dispel some stereotypes about Americans and celebrate the diversity in the US has been difficult, but also some of the most meaningful work I’ve been able to do.

Often it’s frustrating – I have fifth graders who don’t know the alphabet and fourth graders who stare blankly when asked, “What’s your name?” Whenever I start to get discouraged I try to remember that the goal of language learning isn’t just being able to talk with people in a different language, it’s about learning to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It’s about seeing the world from another perspective; it’s a step toward becoming a citizen of the world and not just a citizen of one country. More than anything else that I learned from my time at UD, was the discovery of a new way to view and interact with the world around me.

I hope to inspire my students to share my passion for languages but, more realistically, I think that in five years many of my students won’t remember how to order food in English. At the same time, I am confident they will remember the connection they made with a foreign teacher. I’m confident they’ll remember dancing, singing, and laughing in class. I’m confident that they will have more knowledge and cultural awareness because of the time we spent together.