Martin's bilingual lifestyle

Many students in our school attend Spanish classes, but few can actually fluently speak the language. Junior Allie Martin has been able to become bilingual and speaks both English and Spanish fluently. She had the opportunity to experience living in both Argentina and Panama. Martin lived in Argentina for 2 years and in Panama for 3. Because of this she was able to learn the language at such a young age and bring it back to the U.S. with her.

The Martin family first moved to both Argentina and Panama because of her father’s line of work and she moved back to the U.S. for the same reason. Martin has said that she is not the only member of her family to also speak Spanish. Her father is bilingual as well. Her mother understands the Spanish language but she cannot communicate with it, and her sister was too young to remember any of the language that she learned.

Martin claims that the biggest change for her was the schooling system when returning to the United States.

“I went to an IB school that was international, therefore everyone spoke English and Spanish and tests were non existent.

Martin says that when she first moved back to the U.S. she was lost with the ways the teachers taught her and with the schedules and rules.

Due to the fact that Martin has been bilingual for most of her life, it has caused her to be in some classes with upperclassmen. She has been taking upper level Spanish classes since she arrived in the U.S. back in 2016. In 8th grade she took Spanish III with students that were two grade levels above her own and she is currently helping Señora Lewis with teaching the Spanish Four class. Martin is also working on an independent study with Señora Lewis. She hopes that in the future she will be able to pursue a career that allows her to use both English and Spanish daily.

Martin says her favorite memory of Panama was, “going to a house that was in the middle of water. It was on a tour called Captain Carl’s Monkey Tour, you take a boat and all the way there, monkeys jump on the boat and you can feed them. At the house, you eat and are able to play with toucans and lizards. Afterwards, you kayak to a waterfall where you can climb to the top and jump off! Although I was around 12 when I went on this tour and I am now 16, it was a wonderful experience that I could never forget.”

Martin does still keep in contact with a lot of her friends she met in Panama. Most of her friends were in the same place as her. They were living in Panama because of their parents’ jobs, just like the Martin family. Martin says that she does want to go back someday. She would like to be able to remember the way that she used to live and to be able to see the culture that she was once apart of.