Mini Profile - Karen Martin (faculty member whose never been in Skiff)

Flexibility. Scheduling. Teaching. Linguistics. Culture. All of these aspects describe part of a Spanish professor's job--well, the professional side and personal side to life
Karen Martin, instructor of Spanish, said being professor is different from other educational professions because it allows for more time with her family. Teaching classes on only Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays allows for her to go on field trips with her kids' school and more involvement in her kids' lives, in general.
Being a professor isn't just about teaching the kids, it's also about interacting with them, and keeping things interesting and fresh. They keep her young, she said.
It's so rewarding when students decide to become majors or minors in Spanish after they have taken a class with her, Martin said. For students be a major or minor in Spanish, it's important for them to "input, input, input," meaning to find as many ways as possible to input Spanish into their lives outside of class, she said. There are so many different outlets that allow for foreign language input such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines.
Studying abroad is also very important for students if they can afford it. It's a great experience. You don't really appreciate another country's culture until you are thrown into it for an extended period of time, she said.
"Immersion. Becoming immersed in a language is the best way to learn it," Martin said. "It allows to learn about a different culture firsthand and it changes how you think about things."
Martin said although she has not visited Spain, she has had the opportunity to visit Mexico and Puerto Rico. The people and the history made the experience memorable, she said.