SPANISH

Only a year ago, Roxana Trandafir wasn’t keen on school. ‘I was terrible at maths and bad at science. I wasn’t interested in sport either. Also I was very shy and didn’t have many friends. My family were worried about me because I didn’t want to go to school in the morning.’

Then one day something changed. Roxana was coming out of school when she saw an advert for an evening class in Spanish. ‘Why not, I thought. I was bored and didn’t have anything else to do.’ On the first night of the class, Roxana didn’t feel very confident. When she walked into the Spanish class, her classmates were talking and laughing. ‘They all looked very clever and had lots to say,’ Roxana says. ‘I just wanted to go home.’ Roxana’s feelings soon changed. Her Spanish teacher was very lively and really good at explaining the new language. Roxana quickly learnt to pronounce Spanish words. A week later she could repeat short sentences in Spanish. Now she can understand her teacher when she speaks in Spanish. ‘This summer my mum and dad took me to Spain. It was great – I could translate the menu for my parents and I could tell my parents what people were saying to us. For the first time in my life I felt like I was good at something!’ Roxana thinks she was lucky to see the advert for the class. ‘Now I feel more confident in school because I know there’s something I’m good at. I can speak to people from other countries too! I learn Spanish every day and I’m learning French now, too.’