April 23rd Meeting – Leticia Smith’s Presentation

At the third Austin Bilingüe meeting held on Wednesday, April 23rd we were fortunate enough to have Leticia Smith, founder and president of Risas y Sonrisas, provide a presentation about her company’s teaching tools designed to help kids learn Spanish. Leticia recounted how she started her work while trying to help her own neighborhood school with their attempts to teach Spanish. “I was amazed that, having come from Mexico and now living in the richest country in the world, there were virtually no quality teaching tools to help kids learn Spanish”, Leticia said as she retold her story. It was around that time that she had an epiphany, of sorts, that occured when she attended a training course on Accelerated Learning at The University of Houston. “The theory behind Accelerated Learning made so much sense to me and I could relate to how it would have helped me when I myself was a kid in school struggling to make heads or tails of teachers that insisted on lecturing and focusing on verbal and written communication.” The Accelerated Learning techniques Leticia went on to adopt for her tools are based on the idea that in order to maximize learning we must engage both the right and left hemispheres of our brain – that is, we must accompany words, a left brain focus, with images and music which are processed by the right hemisphere. Leticia used this basic concept to design a series of posters, flash cards, and workbooks that help kids learn Spanish by coupling words with fun, sight and sound oriented, games and activities. Since launching her company Leticia has sold her tools, which now include CDs and DVDs, to countless teachers and schools across the country and is actively looking to expand her company going forward. Leticia summed up the philosophy behind her company’s products by retelling a saying from the Chinese philosopher Confucius who once said “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” How little things have changed in a couple of thousand years!