Elementary school teacher Analyn Palugod has Baan named the 2021 Teacher of the Year for the US territory of Guam. Photo credit: The Guam Daily Post.

I enjoy sharing stories about exceptional educators who have been honored for their work. Among them is Analyn Palugod, an elementary school teacher from Mangilao, Guam. She has been named the territory’s 2021 Teacher of the Year.

Analyn teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) to third, fourth, and fifth graders at Adacao Elementary School in Mangilao. She also serves as the school’s ESL Coordinator. She has spent the last four years of the twelve years she has worked for the Guam Department of Education at the school. Prior to teaching ESL, she taught a variety of elementary grade levels as a regular classroom teacher.

Analyn employs a number of strategies to help her students acquire language. “Instead of words, I always try to do it through action,” she says. “So I would incorporate images. Having them summarize the story through drawing pictures, I can still be able to see that they mastered the concept. From there, I always try to incorporate the common core standards and try to make it at their own level,” she continues. In addition, her teaching methods include incorporating current events into the curriculum, which she says helps benefit her students even after they move on from her classroom.

Analyn is known to be an advocate for cultural education. She strives to help students take pride in their cultural diversity, unique backgrounds, and ways of knowing and learning. “By empowering students, I can engage their learning further while showing them that they can make an impact no matter what age they are,” asserts Analyn.

Analyn earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from the University of Guam, where she graduated in 2006 magna cum laude. She earned her Master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University of Southern California in 2014.