In March of 2020, World Language Teacher Inmaculada Lozano-Diaz decided to travel for spring break to visit family, but when COVID-19 started to increase in severity, her one week visit turned into a 17-month long stay.
While in Spain, a lockdown was imposed that did not allow for travel in or out of the country, leaving Lozano Diaz stuck with her family and unable to return to her Spanish teaching position here at Trinity. She had to continue teaching remotely all the way across the ocean, which caused some unexpected issues to arise.
“The first [challenge] was time schedule because I was working in the evenings,” Lozano-Diaz said. “I started [at] 3pm my time in Europe, and I finished at 9pm.”
Having virtual lessons proved difficult not only for Lozano-Diaz, but also for her students.
“It’s not as fun as it used to be here in the classroom because now we are all at home by ourselves, so it was kind of sad under pressure for all of us to be home,” Lozano-Diaz said.
After teaching online for the end of the 2020 school year, Lozano-Diaz was still unable to return to the United States under Spain’s travel laws. Because of this, she had to temporarily leave her Trinity teaching position for one year until she could return.
While she was in Spain for the 2020-2021 school year and unable to teach at Trinity, Lozano-Diaz worked at the University of Madrid teaching psychology. Before she started teaching at Trinity, Lozano-Diaz received a psychology degree in Spain along with a Master’s degree in counseling, and when she came to America, she got her second Master’s degree in teaching Spanish at UCF. She said that the teaching environment of her students at Trinity versus the university students she taught during her quarantine year were stark contrasts of each other.
“I love psychology, and I like to tell [my students] what I learned, but I really like to work with [younger] students because you are so energetic so you always bring me smiles,” Lozano-Diaz said.
During her time in Spain teaching, Lozano-Diaz was under a shutdown where residents could not leave their house for four months except to go to the supermarket or pharmacy. But once that period of time was up, she was able to enjoy the extra time living with her family.
“We were hiking a lot, so we did a lot of outdoor activities … because with this COVID, we couldn’t do too many inside activities,” Lozano-Diaz said.
Eager to get back to her Spanish teaching job, Lozano-Diaz had to come to the U.S. through Mexico and quarantined there for three weeks while waiting for a permit to allow her to return to the U.S. and travel to Europe for her family. She is now approved and can finally come back to her teaching job in person.
“I’m so happy that I’m here back again with my students [and] with the rest of the teachers and with this Trinity family,” Lozano-Diaz said.
