New Teacher: Tim Frye, Spanish

While Spanish is a common choice for a world language course at BSM, students may not be familiar with the new Spanish teacher, Tim Frye. He will be bringing his teaching style and ideas into the community of BSM as he teaches Spanish II and III this school year.

Frye grew up in St. Paul Minnesota. He went to school at University of Minnesota Duluth, and studied abroad in Chile. “I liked it a lot… I was pretty advanced Spanish student, so I got to take courses with Spanish speaking students… So I got to talk a lot about you know, literature, philosophy, things like that,” Frye said.

Frye also has previous experience in education as a teacher and assistant professor. “I taught at the university level for the past eight years. So I was teaching at the University of Minnesota for the past seven years. Then I taught as… a visiting assistant professor at Macalester College in St. Paul… I did my PhD in Latin American literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Minnesota and so I would teach there while I was doing my studies while I was doing my research,” Frye said.

At first, Frye wasn’t sure he wanted to become a teacher, but he discovered that he enjoyed teaching because of his love of learning. “I didn’t know I wanted to be a teacher when I was a high schooler… then I got into graduate school and then I started teaching and it just became more and more interesting to me. I have this kind of soft spot or this affinity… for learning. And I think all the training I’ve had has really made me like teaching more and more,” Frye said.

Frye has been speaking Spanish as a second language since elementary school, but he wasn’t speaking it day to day till his experiences abroad. “It’s always something I’ve had with me but never something I’ve really taken seriously. But then I went to when I got out of high school, [and] I took a gap year and went to an immersion school in Buenos Iris and Argentina… that’s really when it clicked post high school,” said Frye.

Frye uses a teaching style called Communicative Language Teaching, which causes him to shape his classes around group activities. “It’s like if students are speaking in class, students speaking Spanish in classes, more important to me than students speaking correctly,” said Frye.

Frye believes that speaking in class and making mistakes is important to learning. “I often call my class the error zone… this where you have to make mistakes in the class [and] if you’re not making errors, you need to put yourself out there more,” said Frye.

Outside of his teaching career and raising his one-year-old daughter, Harper, Frye enjoys watching movies and playing basketball. “Harper takes a lot of my time. But I really like.. reading, [and] watching old films. I have this ridiculous saying that… if it’s in black and white that it’s good… And… I love playing basketball,” Frye said.

Frye is grateful to be a part of BSM, and because personal circumstances caused him to miss the first two weeks of school, he is thankful for the support he has received. “I’m so thankful for my colleagues… shout out the World Language Department [that] has been so great helping me through kind of working with subs and working with my class… with all of that I’m very thankful to be at BSM because they’ve just, they’ve they’ve been so kind… Everyone’s been just so patient and warm and sending me condolences. People I don’t even know, that I’ve never met, and now I really want to meet them because they’re so sweet and sent me all these kind words… I’m very thankful to be here,” Frye said.