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November 4, 2025
Spanish Teacher Gizelle Walter thinks language is best learned through conversation, curiosity — and community.
BY KRISTIN DUISBERG
On one level, Spanish Language Teacher Gizelle Walter’s decision to come to St. Paul’s School was spontaneous. On another, it was always meant to be. She had heard about the School from her nephew, Denholm Blake ‘23, but had never been on the grounds before coming to celebrate his graduation in June 2023.
“I looked around and was just like ‘wow,’” Walter recalls. “Denny always spoke so highly of St. Paul’s, and I knew how special it was to him. They were hiring for a Spanish teacher, so one week later I applied, and two weeks after that I was packing up my family and moving here.”
Here, for Walter, her husband and her two children, means Ford House, one of the girls dorms on the academic quad. Walter serves as an academic adviser in Ford and as a coach for the junior varsity volleyball team in addition to teaching at every level of the Spanish language curriculum, conducting her classes in the language even at the introductory level.
“I’d say maybe 90% in Spanish for my level one students,” she says. “Here and there, you might have a little Spanglish coming out. But we read books and short stories, and we use Spanish as much as possible, because I want my students to have the confidence that they can read and they can speak the language from day one. I ask them, ‘do you know everything in English? It’s your language; do you know every word in it? Of course you don’t — we are all always learning, even our own languages.’ So that’s what I emphasize with them: You make mistakes, and that’s one of the ways you learn.”
A natural-born teacher, Walter grew up on the Caribbean island of Dominica speaking English and French Creole. Drawn to Spanish by a priest who spoke the language during Sunday School, a young Walter set about creating her own classroom, populated by her stuffed animals, years before she began to study Spanish in school. “We lived in an apartment, and I would use the front door as my chalkboard,” she recalls with a laugh. “I don’t know if my mother saw my passion or just got fed up with me using her door as a chalkboard, but one day I came home and she had a beautiful chalkboard for me. That was in fourth or fifth grade, and I’ve been teaching ever since.”
“We are all always learning, even our own languages.’ So that’s what I emphasize with them: You make mistakes, and that’s one of the ways you learn.”
Spanish Teacher Gizelle Walter
Walter earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Universidad de Oriente in Cuba, where she lived for six years, as well as a master’s degree in teaching Spanish language and culture from the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Spain, and a master’s degree in Spanish language from the Ohio State University. She appreciates the breadth of approach she can take to teaching, from singing popular songs to engaging in complex discussions about culture and current events, as well as how deeply her students engage with their learning.
“Language classes are important here,” she says. “The students take this curriculum as seriously as they do humanities and math and science. We have a strong department, and I have such talented colleagues.”
Another thing Walter appreciates is the genuine sense of community she’s found at SPS. “I know community is something that gets talked about a lot, but it is true. My students see me in my PJs, with no makeup on. Students who aren’t even in my classes greet me by name on the pathways, because they’re friends of my students.”
Now in her third year at SPS, Walter is meeting even more of those students as her daughter, Gabrielle, settles in as a member of the Form of 2029. You won’t see Gabie in her mother’s Spanish classroom, however; she’s following in her cousin Denny’s footsteps and studying French.
