Student Reflection: Organizational Challenges and Triumps for Setting up ESL Classes

by Andy Kraus

Picture: Some of the Coordinators hard at work.

My first meeting with the ESL group was a couple weeks ago! The tutors sat down and learned about what the program would be like, what the responsibilities are, and we planned dates for the tutoring sessions.

After the meeting of tutors (we have a lot this year!), I met with the coordinators. I helped out a lot last year and am going to be one of the main planners this year because of my experience. We have a syllabus lined up and each day of the week one of the coordinators will be planning what we do that day. The students are loving it!

Finding and printing materials is a challenge, as it was last year. There are a number of free sites on the internet where we have found good information to use, and we have a number of textbooks as well for the more advanced students.

We also have a good number of students this year, around 15. This works perfectly because we have around the same number of teachers, and this helps us give a lot of personal attention to the students, which they need because they all have different levels of mastery of the English language.

I can't wait to see what next week brings!

Student Reflection: Anthony Solis Introduces Himself and His Work in the Community

Anthony Solis is currently a student in "Oral Spanish." For his honors project, he is working in the community and blogging about his experiences, thoughts and learning. (My apologies to Anthony and the readers--he sent me his post with all the correct diacritical marks, and for some reason I couldn't get them on here. Sorry!)

by Anthony Solis

Me llamo Anthony Solis y esto es mi primer anyo en la universidad. He tomado clases de espanyol por cuatro anyos en la escuela secundaria. Mi concentracion es estadisticas y mis amigos me preguntan por que tomo mas clases de espanyol si no me ayudan a recibir el titulo. Primero, siempre es bueno "expandir la mente" y comunicarse con personas distintas de uno mismo. Pero, por que me sumerjo en el espanyol?

Todo empezo cuando era muy joven. Mi papa puede hablar bien el espanyol para la educacion que recibio cuando el fue estudiante en la escuela secundaria y yo siempre queria conversar con el en una "lengua secreta". No hablo' mucho espanyol en casa, pero cuando miro hacia atras, veo que hablabamos al menos un poco de espanyol en casa. Siempre he tenido ganas de hablar con fluidez pero es imposible si no tienes el entorno social. He aprendido que la lengua no es solamente una manera de hablar, pero es una manera de vivir. Los hispanohablantes con quienes he trabajado querian hablar en espanyol entre ellos pero conmigo, usualmente en ingles. Es posible que entre ellos querian guardar su cultura pero espero que solo sea mi falta de fluidez la causa de cambiar las conversaciones al ingles.

Me encanta trabajar para la comunidad. Con mi experiencia en ECIRMAC, voy a ayudar a la comunidad y tambien mejorar mis habilidades de hablar. Quiero tener oportunidades para hablar con gente que necesite que le hable en espanyol. Con la experiencia, espero tener mas confianza en empezar y continuar conversaciones en espanyol.

Strike!

by Ann Abbott

The TAs at the University of Illinois are on strike. In my Business Spanish class, we talked about strikes during the chapter on Human Resources, and we specifically discussed the possibility of this strike. Now that it's happening, I'd like my students to return to those concepts and work with them in the context of what is going on in university right now and is affecting them.

Please click here to see the lesson plan.

Feel free to circulate widely! I know that many TAs and profs want to still teach their students yet not cross the picket line and having an on-line lesson is one possible solution.

Student Reflection: Andrew Kraus Introduces Himself and His Work in the Community

Andrew is a student in my "Business Spanish" class, and for his honors project this semester he is using his Spanish in the community and blogging about it here.

by Andrew Kraus

I'm a senior studying economics and communication, and I am also pursuing a Spanish minor. This will be my second year working with the Newman Hall ESL group, and I'm very excited to start teaching English to native Spanish-speakers of the community again. Last year it was very rewarding to see the students growing in their English ability every week.

Besides tutoring last year, I have been fortunate enough to use Spanish outside the classroom frequently in other places. I have travelled to Barcelona, Spain and the Dominican Republic, and both of those experiences greatly honed my ability to "speak on my feet" with native speakers. I also try to read Spanish papers and watch "The Simpsons" in Spanish as much as I can. It is still a unique challenge to transfer that language knowledge effectively through to students.

I hope that through this class I'll be able to help local people improve their English ability, and maybe in the process improve my Spanish language acquisition. But most of all I am excited to interact with people from the local community!

UIUC: Use Knowledge Gained in Class and Community to Innovate!

by Ann Abbott

Students, hurry to register for this great opportunity!

“Dear Colleagues:

"As many of you know, this is the time of year when the Technology Entrepreneur Center launches the annual V. Dale Cozad New Venture Competition. TEC and the Academy have collaborated on the event for a number of years now, and for the past three years, we have kicked off the Competition with a great event called “speed teaming.” Modeled after “speed dating,” the Cozad speed teaming event allows students with ideas for a venture to meet and talk to students who may not have an idea, but who would nevertheless like to be a part of a team and compete. Many, many students have valuable skills that they could bring to a team: great writing, a capacity for finance, marketing, excellent oral presentation skills, research abilities, etc. Students from many disciplines have participated in Cozad in the past, and the experience is transformative!

"All students across campus (and at Parkland) are welcome to participate; only one member of each team must be a UIUC student. Graduate and undergraduate students are welcome. For-profit and not-for-profit ventures compete – and social ventures have won the Cozad Competition in the past!

"The Cozad Competition is now in its tenth year, and has launched a number of successful student ventures. Please encourage your students to apply, but the speed-teaming event is next Monday, and registration for that event is limited, and closes this coming Friday!!! More details are available on the enclosed flyer….

If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me, or Rhiannon Clifton, the Assistant Director of the Technology Entrepreneur Center (https://exchange.cites.uiuc.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=3b89b13609ca4d1c8b0004d216a8a8f1&URL=mailto%3arclifton%40illinois.edu)

Thank you all for your support!

How "Comunidades" Addresses Gender, Immigration, Language and Culture

by Ann Abbott

I wrote the piece below for the upcoming newsletter for Women and Gender in Global Perspectives (WGGP), and I thought I would share it here.

I am a Faculty Affiliate of WGGP, and Gale Summerfield, the Director, and I are friends and Faculty Fellows together at the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Although my work does not focus specifically on gender issues, they permeate all discussions of migration, immigration policies, education and social services--basically, everything we talk about in Spanish community service learning!

“'I want to speak Spanish with native speakers!' students say when I ask them what interests them the most about doing Spanish community service learning (CSL)—a teaching methodology in which students do meaningful service learning work within a Spanish-speaking community to enhance their learning of the academic content of the course. Then when I ask what concerns them the most, they often reply, 'I’m nervous about speaking Spanish with native speakers.'

"These seemingly contradictory student attitudes are both reflected in Comunidades: Más allá del aula (Prentice Hall), the first textbook that fully integrates Spanish CSL. On the one hand, Spanish CSL allows students to engage in real-world contexts that illuminate the Spanish language and Latino cultures in challenging, exciting and meaningful ways. On the other hand, students need a solid curricular program that supports them linguistically and culturally as they work in a community context that is quite different from the highly controlled classroom environment they are used to.

"I began teaching SPAN 232 “Spanish in the Community” in 2005 with 12 students and one community partner—Urbana’s East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance Center. Now around 100 students per semester enroll in our two Spanish CSL courses, and we partner with around a dozen local organizations. All told, students contribute 2,400 volunteer hours each semester. For some of our community partners, this helps them reach local Spanish-speakers for the first time; for others, it helps them enhance what they’re already doing with Latinas/os.

"Gender issues and immigration are highlighted in many parts of the textbook. One reading in particular recounts the triumphs and challenges of an undocumented Latina teen as she navigates high school, narrowly escapes a raid while shopping for a prom dress and cannot attend college because she would have to pay out-of-state tuition. The videos that accompany the textbook feature interviews with several adult Latinas living in the US who describe their experiences with culture shock, the difficulty of being far away during crises in their home countries, the misperceptions held by family and friends in their home country about their lives in the U.S, and more. (The videos can be seen at the Companion Website.) A lesson on push and pull factors for immigration urges students to think more deeply and more globally about the various reasons why people from all over the world take the risk of immigrating.

"Although both students and the community tend to react positively to Spanish CSL, there are many challenges as well. Even students who have taken years of Spanish courses and studied abroad still have trouble transferring their linguistic and cultural skills to a real-world, professional context.

"For example, one of the very first things students learn in any Spanish class is the difference between the informal (tú) and formal (usted, ustedes) ways of addressing other people. In the classroom, students rarely address anyone formally, so they do not practice it; but in the community, they need to use it regularly. The textbook helps them practice this skill in order to be more culturally competent in the community.

"Likewise, students learn early on in their Spanish classes how to form commands, but it too is rarely practiced in a classroom setting. Therefore, when they work with Spanish-speaking children in a local school, they are often not fluent in giving commands to more than one student at a time (e.g., siéntense y abran el libro). Furthermore, students often misinterpret the cultural differences in the use of commands. They may perceive as rude a person who uses commands because their cultural preference would be to temper that form of speech with more indirect requests. However, it can be perfectly acceptable in Hispanic cultures for a person of authority to use the more direct, blunt command.

"As these examples show, students’ Spanish-speaking abilities and cultural knowledge can be very valuable assets to community organizations who often struggle to meet the needs of diverse linguistic groups with limited budgets. However, the challenge for Spanish CSL instructors is to help students bridge their classroom knowledge and their real-world tasks. The lessons in Comunidades are designed to help instructors and students do just that."

How Students Gain Transcultural Literacy through Spanish Community Service Learning

by Ann Abbott

Do Spanish departments provide transcultural education?

I asked myself that question after reading this article about Prof. Mark Dressman in the most recent edition of Inside Illinois.

I'll quote liberally:

"According to Mark Dressman, a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education at Illinois, the current group of college students will inherit a workplace where they will need to be prepared for 'significant contact with the rest of the world.'

"To adequately prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s global economy, Dressman favors 'transcultural education,' which he defines as an experience that goes beyond the traditional rite-of-passage trip to western Europe.

“'In addition to developing an identity as someone from a particular city, state or country, transcultural education focuses on getting students to start thinking of themselves as citizens of the world,' he said. 'It’s a relatively new approach that is being applied across a number of fields, including education, nursing and business.'

"Dressman says that transcultural education is an approach to teaching and learning that is 'dialogic and interdisciplinary' in nature. Rather than learn about other cultures from a distance, a transcultural approach moves students and teachers toward learning through direct engagement with a culture’s members and its perspectives.

"Ideally, transcultural education goes beyond traditional course readings and discussions to include students having what Dressman calls 'a fairly profound and authentic experience of another culture, one they can’t get in a course on campus, or even in a study-abroad trip to Europe, and one that requires them to communicate with others as co-equals.'"

Yes. You could say that this is what Spanish departments (and all language programs) have been doing all along. We teach about languages, cultures and cultural products (mostly literary works and films). Our National Standards include"Cultures," emphasizing that students should learn about cultural products, practices and perspectives. At least on our campus, the majority of study-abroad students go to Spanish-speaking programs and many of our majors study abroad.

No. One word from the article struck me as absolutely absent from most Spanish programs that I know: "workplace." I believe that our Spanish programs excel at cultural analysis. (Usually expressed through literary analysis.) But I believe that we fail to explicitly connect those analytical skills to their application in real-world professional settings.

Sure, some programs have a "Business Spanish" class on the books, but it's often seen as the booby prize of teaching assignments. And I realize that bolstering students' critical thinking skills is a very important undertaking. But it's not hard to wrap up an analysis with a work-related application. Other fields are doing it better than us, it seems!

Nursing. Take a look at the standards for cultural competency in their field. I wish Spanish programs were teaching their students to work for social justice, advance culturally-appropriate policies and to empower and advocate the people they work with/for! And look at these case studies used to teach transcultural nursing--we should borrow some of these scenarios for teaching our Spanish students.

How to Teach Your Spanish Students about Human Development

by Ann Abbott

As your students are doing their community-service learning (CSL) work off campus, they are bumping up against important issues of human development. But they probably don't even realize it.

This is one of many great opportunities for Spanish CSL instructors to connect their students' experiences and learning to other disciplines. And even if you're not an expert in human development (and I certainly am not), here is a lesson plan that can begin to tie together the issues for you and your students.

1. Pon estos elementos en orden de importancia, de 1 (más importante) a 6 (menos importante), según tu propia opinión.

___ Ser respetado por la sociedad en que vives.
___ Gozar de buena salud y tener acceso al cuidado médico.
___ Sentirte seguro/a (es decir, no experimentar la violencia).
___ Poder asistir a la escuela, la universidad, etc.
___ Controlar tu propia vida (es decir, poder participar en las decisiones que te afecten).
___ Tener los ingresos económicos para poder llevar una vida digna.

Compara las respuestas de todos. ¿Cuáles son los tres elementos más importantes según el promedio de todos?

2. Lee esta definición del desarrollo humano y de los tres factores más importantes en este índice del desarrollo humano estadounidense.

Sí / No ¿Tus opiniones de los tres elementos más importantes coinciden con este índice?
Sí / No ¿Coinciden las opiniones de tus compañeros?

3. Consulta estos mapas y completa estas frases.

En cuanto al índice de desarrollo humano americano, el estado donde vivo es _________ y está en ____________ lugar comparado con los otros estados.
En cuanto al índice de salud, el estado donde vivo es _________ y está en ____________ lugar comparado con los otros estados.
En cuanto al índice de educación, el estado donde vivo es _________ y está en ____________ lugar comparado con los otros estados.
En cuanto al índice de ingresos económicos, el estado donde vivo es _________ y está en ____________ lugar comparado con los otros estados.

¿Cómo calificarías el nivel de desarrollo humano en tu estado? excelente / bueno / regular / malo

4. Ahora compara lo que has observado en la comunidad donde trabajas con las estadísticas de tu estado. ¿Crees los índices de desarrollo humano para todo el estado reflejan cómo viven ellos? Escribe tu respuesta usando términos como "más que", "menos que" y "tanto como"

5. Haz este test para saber tu propio índice de desarrollo humano y completa la frase siguiente. (OJO: Cuando comparamos los números usamos "de" en vez de "que." Es decir, cinco es más de cuatro y cien mil es menos de doscientos mil.)

"Mi resultado, __________ es (más de / menos de) _________ , el índice del estado donde vivo."

6. Ahora, piensa en un adulto que has llegado a conocer en la comunidad y haz el test con la información de él/ella. ¿Cuál es el resultado?

a. Mi índice de _____ es (más de / menos de) _____ , el índice de la persona en la comunidad que conozco.

b. Me doy cuenta de que no conozco a nadie lo suficiente para poder contestar la mayoría de las preguntas.

c. Estos elementos parecen influir mucho en el índice: _____________________________

Competencia cultural. Analiza las preguntas del test para hallar información cultural implícita en ellas. ¿Se puede hacer un test "neutro"?

What Beat Do You Teach To?

by Ann Abbott

Do the classes you teach (or attend) have a chorus--a theme that repeats, as you circle through activities that each bring new insight onto the same topic?

Does the conclusion of your class period echo the introduction, not repeating it exactly but sounding with a deeper timbre because of the work that you and your students did during the previous 50 minutes?

Sometimes one part of my lesson comes to a full stop, with a full-measure rest, before going on to the next part. Most times, though, I like to slip from one activity to the next through a quick, deft transition that links the old and the new.

Professor Liora Bresler is a world-renowned expert on aesthetic education and the qualitative research method. She is also a good friend of mine. The interview with her in the latest Inside Illinois develops the metaphor that teaching (and research) is a musical performance.

How can use this metaphor to explore community service learning (CSL) teaching more deeply? Here are a few thoughts:

• While traditional classroom teaching might be considered a solo effort (although, of course, it isn't really), teaching a CSL course is highly collaborative. The various stakeholders must be present (even if just present in the content) in your teaching. How do you bring the community members' "voice" into your classroom sessions? Ask students to relate specific encounters that they had with community members. Show a video about or by Spanish-speaking community members as the foundation of a classroom activity. Invite your community partners to lead a class session.
• Think creatively about the musical instruments you use in your CSL class. My children are lucky to attend a school with a wonderful music program, including Mr. Chad Dunn and his Recycled Rhythms. They use found objects to create rhythm instruments. This creative form of recycling produces wonderful instruments and learning opportunities. What objects do your students "find" in the community, and how can you bring them alive in the classroom? Invite your students to collect real-world Spanish words and phrases that they've never seen in a textbook, then do something with those words in class. Do they discover places (stores, restaurants, offices, Latino-owned businesses, or entire communities!) that they didn't know existed before they started leaving campus to go to their CSL work? Use class time to create a Google Map with those community assets and share it with others.
• In what other ways does the music metaphor work in a CSL course?

UIUC: "Social Justice on the Ground" Symposium

Global Crossroads holding symposium "Social Justice on the Ground"

The Global Crossroads Living-Learning Community will be holding a half-day symposium: “Social Justice on the Ground.” Please encourage your students to attend by announcing the program. Faculty and staff members and graduate students are also welcome to attend. Although an RSVP is not necessary, we would welcome a response since we will be serving lunch.

Geared toward undergraduates, this symposium brings together students and faculty to discuss issues of social justice and researchers’ roles in relation to the communities that they study, work in, or collaborate with. Not only will students be encouraged to examine the links or gaps between academic research, collaboration, and social justice engagement; they will also be encouraged to think critically about the concept of global citizenship.

Program:
Opening Remarks
Lydia Khuri, Global Crossroads Program Coordinator

Transnational Community Development: The Case of a Rural, Midwestern Town
Faranak Miraftab, Urban and Regional Planning

Challenges of Designing for People: Developing Community-managed Water Supplies Around the World
Student Panel, Engineers without Borders

Date: Sunday, November 8, 2009
Time: 11 AM-2:30 PM (lunch served)
Location: Saunders Lounge, Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Halls, Urbana (entrance on College Court)

Video Activities for Your Spanish Class 2

by Ann Abbott

Not sure how to keep your students' attention in class while they're thinking about how to get through until Fall Break? Do you have a manuscript/presentation deadline looming, and you need to spend less time lesson planning and more time writing? As promised, here's a grab-and-go lesson plan for you.

The videos and lesson plan are planned for the sixth-semester level. If you are teaching a lower-level course, consider having students watch just a couple of the video clips.

If you have access to the technology, have students watch the clips during class. Alternatively, you can do the pre-viewing activities at the end of one class period, tell students to watch the videos and do the comprehension activities as homework, and then do the post-viewing activities at the start of the next class period.

Click here to see the videos.

Click here to see the lesson plan.

Click here to order Comunidades: más allá del aula.

If you're an instructor, click here to request your free review copy of the textbook.

Video Activities for Your Spanish Class

by Ann Abbott

Four and a half weeks: that is all the time left in our semester at the University of Illinois.

This is usually the time in the semester when our Spanish community service learning (CSL) students are consolidating their knowledge about their community partners, the clients they serve, and the Spanish they need to communicate effectively. Their confidence has increased, and the relationships they have formed with community members are strong. After the difficult first weeks, this is a time of calm, but also deeper questioning of what they are seeing and doing in the community.

For Spanish CSL instructors, this is a time to pull together loose threads and to push students to do deeper, more nuanced reflection about their learning. You may need to inject some variety into your classroom activities, just to change the atmosphere in the classroom and to help students approach their learning from a new angle. You're also probably thinking ahead to the final: how will you write an exam that covers everything they've done in class, for homework and in the community.

To meet those needs, my following posts will feature the videos at Comunidades' Companion Website and activities to accompany them. Just when your lesson-planning energy is waning, I hope you'll be able to grab some quick activities to take to your next class.

Tune in tomorrow.

Use Web 2.0 to Create "Intercambios" in Your Community

by Ann Abbott

Are you a university student who couldn't get into a Spanish class this semester, but you don't want to fall behind on your language skills? Are you planning to study abroad next semester, and you want to boost your confidence by speaking with native speakers before you're totally immersed in Spanish? Maybe you took a Spanish community service learning (CSL) course in a previous semester, and you know that there are a group of Spanish speakers who would love to connect one-on-one with university students to practice English and Spanish; they don't know how to bridge the university-community gap from their side, but you want to help. Maybe you're way past college, but you want to brush up on your Spanish because you see you need it at work, or just because you love the language and the cultures.

Go to the website for Frases y café and set something up. The website is new, and right now it looks like Illinois has zero entries. Start filling it (or any state you live in) in, and start connecting with the community in this way!

Champaign-Urbana: Work with Latina/o Middle Schoolers

by Ann Abbott

Students in our Spanish community service learning (CSL) courses work in grade schools and high schools, but we don't have any community partnerships with middle schools yet. But I just received this information from "Proyecto CHE" which focuses specifically on Latina/o middle schoolers, encouraging them to go to college.

I'm particularly fond of this program because one of my former students, Sonia Rodríguez, was involved in starting it up on this campus a few years ago.

SPAN 232 students, you can work with this program if you need to meet your 28 hours. Here is more information about how you can participate:

"Proyecto C.H.E. (Children for Higher Education) will be having its first session Saturday Oct. 31st, 2009. Proyecto C.H.E. is a middle school program sponsored by La Casa Cultural Latina geared towards middle school students in the Urbana-Champaign community. The purpose of the program is to promote higher education, cultural awareness, community engagement, and mentorship among middle school youth. We are looking for volunteers to serve as positive role models who are encouraging and are motivated to create change in the community. In order to volunteer, it is mandatory that you attend a volunteer training which will provide a better understanding of the purpose and function of the program and give you some insight on how to work with middle-school children. The mandatory orientation session will be held at La Casa Cultural Latina on Wednesday Oct. 28th, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. Please be sure to attend. You cannot volunteer if you do not attend the orientation. If you would like more information please contact Cynthia Ledesma at cledesm2@uiuc.edu.

"Thank you and hope to see you there,

--
"Cynthia Ledesma
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of LAS- Political Science & Latina/Latino Studies La Casa Cultural Latina-Community Outreach Coordinator"

Champaign-Urbana: Use Your Spanish with "Extreme Home Makeover" Recipients

by Ann Abbott

Did you watch the most recent episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC? It featured the Montgomery family who live near Champaign-Urbana and run "Salt & Light," a local food pantry that offers a few other services. There were lots of viewing parties on Sunday evening, including one at the I-Hotel. I first met Nathan Montgomery (the founder of Salt & Light) when he participated in the University of Illinois' Social Entrepreneurship Summer Insititute.

Now here is your chance to use your Spanish to further their mission of providing necessities to all members in our community. See this message:

"The Salt and Light, 1512 W. Anthony Dr., Champaign is looking for volunteers to help translate and communicate with the Hispanic people coming in to pick up clothes and food. The hours needed for volunteers would be Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00-5:00 p.m. Please email Melissa Jackson if you are interested in helping to meet this community need."

SPAN 232 students can work here to make up any missing hours.