About your teacher:
Donna Uken
Donna, a native of Montana, spent all of her school years in Tucson, Arizona, where she was exposed to many different cultures at an early age. An intrigue with Latin American art, music, and language led her to seize her first opportunity to enroll in Spanish classes, at the 7th grade level. As part of the junior high experience, a weekend bus trip to Hermosillo, Mexico, provided the impetus to try to communicate with other students in their native language. What an incentive that was!
Her love of Spanish continued through high school. She realized, upon entering college, that there was an underlying fascination with language development itself. While minoring in Spanish, she majored in Speech Pathology, focusing her interest on language acquisition and disruptions or delays of language learning in children.
Since then, her teaching career has been devoted to assisting children in special education with language-learning disabilities. She currently holds a Nevada teaching credential. Never has her love of Spanish been forgotten, however. Attending the University of Arizona summer school in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1968, then participating in her first mission trip to Bolivia in 1969, solidified her desire to make the learning of Spanish a lifelong passion. Since then, Spanish courses have periodically been taken and opportunities to travel to Latin America have been cherished. For two years during her children’s preschool/early elementary years, she taught Spanish classes at a Montessori school in Reno. Later, while an elementary school special ed teacher, she participated in that school’s enrichment program, teaching Spanish classes to second graders.
In 2002, her church in Reno, Nevada, decided to organize a mission trip to Bolivia! After 33 years, Donna was excitedly returning to Bolivia, this time to assist in hearing testing and the dispensing of hearing aids. Her motivation for mission has led her to participate in subsequent trips to Bolivia, in 2003, 2007, and 2008.
Now, with Music Lingua, has arisen a new opportunity to combine her interest in language acquisition, her passion for working with children, and her love of Spanish!
