She had a couple of dream jobs growing up in Chapleton, Clarendon, but Emma-June Bell opted for the role that would best help her help others — teaching.

Having obtained a first degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from The University of the West Indies (UWI), Bell enrolled in a programme for foreigners at the University of Madrid, where she studied Spanish literature, art and geography and music. Upon leaving Spain, she taught for two years, by which time she figured out that she wanted to become a qualified teacher. She then returned to UWI to earn a Diploma in Education.

So enthusiastic was she about acquiring and learning languages that Bell would often purchase self-teaching books on Portuguese, French, Italian, and Dutch, and she joined the Alliance Française and the Jamaican German Society.

“I loved languages, but studying one language helps you to acquire other languages. You learn the technique on what to start with,” Bell told the Jamaica Observer.

“I read a lot about languages and at one point I realised that learning languages would be an asset, so I used to encourage my students to learn at least one,” she added.

And so, the educator who has taught at Montego Bay High School for Girls, Calabar High, Excelsior High, and Holy Childhood High, did all she could to get students to appreciate foreign languages.

“I taught at a boys’ school and they weren’t all that enthusiastic about language. So I thought, if I made the lessons interesting, they will learn. There came a point when they realised that learning languages enhanced their education,” Bell said.

Bell explained that she and the French teacher at Calabar decided to give students the opportunity to use the languages in a beneficial way.

“We worked very well together, and so we started the carol service at the school in 2000 and had students alternate the items in Spanish and French,” she said.

Despite no longer teaching at Calabar High, her desire to have a carol service for students never waned.

In fact, in the same year she began collaborating for the carol service at her school, she was granted her first opportunity to coordinate the National Spanish Carol Service — a Christian Christmas Carol Service conducted entirely in Spanish.

“One year I attended the Spanish Teachers’ Association meeting and I suggested we have a National Spanish Carol Service, and the president at the time asked me to do the coordinating, and so I wrote letters to the different schools, inviting them,” Bell said. And the rest, as they say, is history.

However, fate would have it that the association would not call on Bell to continue implementation. And so, in 2005 she took up the mantle on her own and led the charge for the now annual event.

The carol service project, which started with six schools in 2005, now hosts a carol service in Kingston and St Ann. On Tuesday, November 22, 19 schools participated in the National Spanish Carol Service held at Webster Memorial United Church. And, on Wednesday, November 23, over a dozen schools participated in the service held at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church in St Ann. The Kingston service was done in partnership with the Embassy of Spain, The Spanish-Jamaican Foundation and the Jamaica Spanish Language Review, while the St Ann leg was sponsored by GraceKennedy.

For Bell, hosting the service in St Ann was truly special.

“In St Ann is where you find most of the relics from the Spanish period (16th century). It was historic to hold the carol service at Our Lady of Perpetual Help as the church itself has foundation stones from the first unfinished church built by the Spaniards,” she told Career & Education.

Bell’s annual service has gained attention and support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information (MoEYI).

“Students learning Spanish aren’t able to get the first-hand listening and speaking experience in Spanish, so the carol service gives them that opportunity to be in a room where the language is being spoken,” education officer for Spanish Errol Haughton said. “When they hear a word they know, they can say, ‘Yes, I know that word.’ That motivates them.”

During her time at Holy Childhood High, Bell said she developed various methods to teach Spanish at the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) level that later prompted her to write the CAPE Study Guide.

“The whole matter of motivation took hold of me and so I started to prepare programmes for the students. I did it in such a way where Spanish was presented simply to them,” she said.

Bell also linked Spanish lessons to history, teaching students about the Spanish period in Jamaica. She also did greeting cards, depicting themes from the Spanish era.

“Since then I’ve done a lot of work on the Spanish period. Right now I’m working on a lengthy paper about the period,” she said.

Bell, who holds a Master of Arts Degree in Spanish from The UWI as well as a Diploma de Estudios Hispánicos from the University of Salamanca in Spain, has also written a book, entitled

Spanish is Fun, with a variety of activities for beginning learners of Spanish.