My name's Ashley Leonard. I grew up in Howard County, Maryland and have been teaching here since 2008. I went to a Howard County School (Howard High - go Lions!), then studied at UMBC for my BA. I studied both Ancient Studies and Modern Languages and Linguistics (German and French) while getting my teaching certificate. After graduating from UMBC in 2008, I started working in Howard County at Glenelg High School (go Gladiators!). I then got my MA in Classics at UMD.
My teaching experience is primarily in High School foreign languages. I'm primarily Glenelg's German teacher, but during my teaching career I've taught German 1-4AP, French 1-3, and Latin 1, 3 and 4AP. I hope to get more opportunities to continue teaching German and Latin at Glenelg.
About The German Sektor
Even though almost all of the high schools in Howard County teach German, I find that there are so few German teachers to collaborate with (or at the very least, so few opportunities to do so). When I first started teaching, it always seemed that the Spanish and French teachers will always finding cool resources for them to use, while it took me hours to find the little bit I did. I still have trouble finding new things, even though I've become much better at looking and being able to create activities around authentic materials.
What I want to do with this blog is help other German teachers either find resources they can immediately use or give them ideas to springboard off of. If I find something worthwhile, I'll try to pass it along. Though I also want to in some ways be generic enough in the resources and ideas I present that they could be transferred to other languages (I do after all teach French and Latin as well).
