Spanish Students Present Ted Talks to Classes

Lucia Santaolalla, Dreamcatcher Editor in Chief| February 26, 2020

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  • Jeff Freeman ’21 talks about corruption in Venezuela. It is a really serious problem compared with corruption in the United States.

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  • Señora Llanos created a TED talk sign in order to give the students a feeling like they were in a real TED talk.

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  • Gabriel Monagas ’21 talks about the differences between the excess of food in the United States and the lack Latinoamerica. He specifically talked about the lack of food in Venezuela.

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Students from Senora MilyBett Llanos’ AP/IB Spanish IV class gathered around the front of the class to watch Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Talks from their classmates on Wednesday, Feb. 12. TED Talks are presentations that students present to the class ranging between three and five minutes about different topics the teacher tells them to talk about, like for example, this time, they had to talk about the different problems in the US and Latin America. 

Sra. Llanos has been assigning her students the TED Talk projects for two years now. The idea behind the presentations is for students to be able to choose a topic that they are passionate about since they have different themes they cover in the AP/IB class. 

“The best aspect is that they get to do this in Spanish; the research, the presentation, frankly the entire topic,” Sra. Llanos said. “To us, it is really rewarding to see that students are able to utilize the language, and I think after going through the TED Talk and [experiencing it], it allows students to build more confidence in their language skills.”

The main discussion of the TED Talk was to talk about the differences in the United States and countries in Latin America. The most discussed topics were political problems in Latin America, especially in Venezuela or Chile. 

“My topic was about mental health, and I talked about the problems we have in our mental health systems and in Latino America, specifically in the country of Chile,” Aashi Vishnoi ‘22 said. “I also talked about the programs we have and I connected the perspectives and the practices both countries have, and show[ed] a great message to it.”

The TED talks helped the students build their skills in a completely different language that they are not used to talking in, and opened their minds in a positive way by studying the differences between the United States and Latin America.