By JANICE KWON
Newly-hired world language teacher Ericka Contreras is excited to be teaching at Jericho High School.
Ms. Contreras’ love for being a teacher began when she played school with her younger brother and cousins. “When I was little, my little brother would be my student or my little cousins. I would just sit them down and pretend that they were my students. And I remember when the dry-erase board came out. My mom bought me a big one and that was my favorite thing to play, just play teacher,” she said.
Ms. Contreras attended college at Nassau Community College before transferring to Queens College, where she received her bachelor’s in psychology and her master’s degree in Spanish language and literature. She also obtained an advanced certificate in applied behavior analysis at LIU Post. Before coming to Jericho, Ms. Contreras worked in the New York City school system for 10 years.
Curriculum Associate for World Languages Dr. Chan was impressed with Ms Contreras’s dedication. He said, “She was very serious about teaching and learning about Spanish.”
Ms. Contreras enjoys getting to know her students by building strong relationships with them. She said, “I like to know about their families and their lives, their activities, what they’re involved in and really listen to the kids.”
Ms. Contreras takes joy in mentoring her class about the conjugations of Spanish verbs.
Freshman Yixuan W. enjoys Ms. Contreras’ teaching style. She said, “She doesn’t give difficult work, her class time management is good, and it’s easy to understand her teaching.”
During her time at Jericho so far, Ms. Contreras has become the advisor of the Spanish Honor Society and has taken part in school events such as Jericho’s homecoming carnival.
Aside from being active at school, Ms. Contreras also loves being active in her everyday life. She said, “I love the outdoors. Mostly you’ll find me at the beach; just running around with the kids is kind of my hobby.”
In addition, Ms. Contreras enjoys listening to Hispanic and pop music artists, such as Shakira, J Balvin and boy bands like the Backstreet Boys.
