Spanish & Illinois

I'll be taking a break from blogging from now through the holidays. Our spring semester starts January 21, so I'll be back before then. My plans for this blog in the new year: New student bloggers. At least one invited expert blogger. I will extend an invitation to community partners to join the blog. A renewed focus on Spanish & entrepreneurship because I'll be teaching that class. More grab-and-go activities for your Spanish community service learning classes. Ann

Marcos Campillo wins the prize for correctly answering the questions about filing names in this post . Still, no one has answered the question about how to file the names in this other post . Marcos, if you answer this one correctly too, then you win a free lunch at the Courier Cafe in beautiful downtown Urbana, Illinois. Anyone else up for trying?

Find more videos like this on ExchangesConnect Online Video Contest Update: Tim won!!!!! He won a 2-week exchange trip to almost anywhere in the world. Felicidades. :) I went to China in the summer of 2006 with the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership . I learned a lot, had fun, and really enjoyed getting to know three undergrads that took the trip with us. One of those undergrads, Tim Peters, just wrote to me and sent a link to the video he and the group made about their trip. He has entered it into a contest. Watch it and vote for it!

By Carolyn Kloecker I recently came across a very interesting website called www.upsidedownworld.org . I was researching for a paper on Obama's policies in Latin America, and some articles on this website came up at the top of the list. The site is a compelation of articles regarding "Activism and Politics in Latin America". I find this very relaevant to cultural studies of Spanish-speaking countries, and much of the information comes from Latin American countries themselves, rather than U.S. news sources. Although I did find a few of the articles very opinionated, I did not see this as a bad thing, as one might in other forms of news. I was very interested in the opinions of the writers and how they would back up their opinions. For example, in an article about what Obama "promises" in Latin America ( http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1597/1 ), I was surprised to find critiques of the President-Elect, as I thought he would present a positive change ...

The latest newsletter from The Entrepreneurship Educator suggests a classroom activity involving marshmallows and spaghetti. You can an image search on Google and find many pictures of students of different ages and in various types of courses working on this exercise. I'll copy entire information below, but what interests me most about the exercise is the list of entrepreneurial concepts that the process teaches. I'm wondering how I might adapt this exercise to meet the goals of my course which is Spanish & Entrepreneurship. Could the students be required to work with materials that come from outside their own cultural experiences (e.g., some type of soft candy from Latin America and fideos)? Could they be required to build a structure that has some cultural resonance from outside their own culture? In sum, I would want the exercise to reveal one of the main issues in my course--language and cultural knowledge provide insights and opportunities for the entrepreneuria...

The Refugee Center was our very first community partner for very good reasons. It's located just about ten blocks away from the Foreign Languages Building, but it opens up an entirely new world to our students. I just received the holiday letter from the Refugee Center. Here are a few quotes that show that our students are exposed to languages, cultures and social issues there that they could never directly encounter in our classes. "Since last year we have had refugees/asylees arrive from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Iraq and China. We have also had families from Liberia, Vietnam, Colombia, Mexico, Somalia and India (and I am sure I have overlooked someone) reunite with their families. "For first quarter of FY09 we have had contact with over 770 unduplicated individuals and 77 of them (a 16% increase from last year) lived in Rantoul. "Volunteers from the U of I Spanish 232 class have been helping some of our elder clients improve their English. It ...

By Carolyn Kloecker Next semester, at the Universidad de San Francisco in Quito, I plan on taking a number of courses, all of them being taught in Spanish. Luckily, my schedule works out to have no classes on Fridays, so I will be able to travel quite often on 3-day weekends. My first class is Antropologia Andina, which I will be taking as the final course to complete my anthropology minor. I am very interested in anthropology, and to be able to study a culture within that cultural environment will be especially rewarding. The next course I'm taking is Politica Ecuatoriana y Su Pensamiento, which is of great interest to me especially considering the leftist movement occurring throughout Latin America. This will likely count towards my area studies in my International Studies major, as will another course I am registered for, Problemas Sociales en el Ecuador. As I plan on working in the community a significant amount while in Ecuador, it will be valuable to know social promlems plag...

By Carolyn Kloecker I recently recieved some exciting news about the family I will be living with in Ecuador! My host mom's name is Yolanda Cordova, and she is an older woman with one of her sons living in the house, as well as her daughter and her respective family (including four kids) living next door. This is a family that a good friend of mine suggested I live with, because she had already been on the program to Ecuador in Fall 2007. I will also have wireless internet, which will be a big plus so that I can keep in contact with friends and family. Liz Girten, a fellow 'blogger' for Spanish & Illinois, has told me all about the area I will be living in. We looked at Google Maps together and she showed me how the bus system works and where I can get a chip for a cell phone while in Ecuador. The house I will be living in is very close to the bus station, where I will take a bus to Cumbayá (a town just outside of Quito, about 15 minutes) where the university is lo...

This morning I received the message below on the Latino Partnership list-serv. Aside from the important content of the e-mail message, I immediately thought about the potential to use the message as the basis of an in-class listening comprehension activity for our students. Here are some ideas: Read the message and have students take down the information on a telephone message pad for the social services or educational setting where they are doing their own community service learning work. Would they know to whom the message should go? Read the message aloud and have students fill out a form that you prepare ahead of time that asks them to list specific information from the message. Prepare various scenarios (real or fictitous) about issues that Mexican nationals are facing, and ask students to decide if they should contact the Cónsul del Departamento de Protección en el Consulado General de México en Chicago, or not. Students will find this challenging, I'm sure. To begin with, I...

Within the past twelve hours I have received two e-mails from University of Illinois students who are interested in the Refugee Center . One student studies journalism and wants to write about it; the other student wants to volunteer or intern there. The employees at the Refugee Center field many questions from college students and professional reporters. Every time immigration issues come up in the news, someone does a story with a local spin. I know that this takes a lot of the employees' time, but it also raises awareness about their clients, the issues they face and the good work of the Refugee Center. Students from many majors can benefit from volunteering there. The student who just contacted me studies International Studies. That makes a lot of sense. The Refugee Center deals with refugees, asylees and immigrants from around the world. Students from law, political sciences, social work, community and human development, languages, sociology, etc. can see the issues that the s...

Students: If you would like to learn more about the immigration that you have seen in Champaign-Urbana through your community-based learning work and put it into a global context, consider the following course for this spring. NEW Spring 2009 Course: CAS 587, CRN 31696, Advanced Study: Special Topics Topic: Immigration: History and Policy Mondays, 3:00 - 4:50 pm at Levis Faculty Center, , 919 W. Illinois St., Urbana This is an interdisciplinary seminar focusing on the history and current policy issues involving transnational migration. Some of the reading and discussion will deal with immigration to the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, but we intend to consider migration as a global phenomenon and to study other societies as well. Offered under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Study Campus-wide Initiative on Immigration, the seminar integrates a series of visitors dealing with Asian, Latin American, and European immigration and will be augmented with a s...

Following up on my previous post about listening comprehension , I did a simply Google search for "how to improve Spanish listening comprehension." That turned up some sites with useful information that I will consider when I continue to develop in-class and homework listening comprehension activities for our Spanish community-based learning students. Materials from Argentina . The audio project has very good materials for real-world uses of Spanish in the US. Click around and find the free newsletters; those have some interesting audio plus video activities that could be useful. Podcasts from Spain . Some topics of the podcasts could appeal to our students and connect to the topics we cover. Seems to concentrate on Spain though, and our students need to become familiarized with Mexican and Central American dialects. I like the fact that one of the speakers is a non-native speaker (but very good!), and the native speaker corrects him. Music . Many students like to listen t...

At the end of the semester our students reflect on their experiences with Spanish community service learning, my TAs reflect on teaching it, and I reflect on coordinating it. Those different perspectives often see different things. And it's not always possible to reconcile them all. So it's helpful to me to always read what students write in their reflections (whether they are my students are not) and listen carefully to what the TAs have to say to me. And I use this blog to represent my own perspective. One of my TAs suspects that students' listening comprehension skills need improvement. It is possible that simple misunderstandings in Spanish complicated students' in-class work,homework and community interactions. The TA suggested that mid-semester oral reports on their community work might replace one of their written auto-evaluaciones and students could evaluate each other. I agree wholeheartedly. Students do need to improve their listening comprehension, and prese...

Last week I attended a very nice luncheon sponsored by the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership . The Academy's new Faculty Fellows were announced, and old and new Faculty Fellows and other friends of the Acadmy had a chance to mingle. I offered to pass out the name tags, and I was once again struck by the difficulties and the importance of teaching our students to understand the systems behind Hispanic names so that they can appropriately speak to people in the community and file their documents. Prof. Feniosky Peña Mora is a professor of civil engineering and an Associate Provost . His name tag for the AEL luncheon was written this way: "Feni Pena-mora." Just imagine our students were working in the community and encountered a document with his name written like that. What are the potential problems for our students if they need to access his file, add to it, or address him personally? Titles . The name tag did not include his professional title, Prof. or Dr. A...

Lately I have been reconnecting on Facebook with a lot of my childhood friends and reminiscing about how much fun I had as a child. High school had it's difficult moments, of course, but mostly I just had a lot of fun learning, participating in school activities and getting together with my friends. But school isn't all fun for everyone. That's why an e-mail this week from one of our Spanish CBL students struck me as particularly problematic. Their assignment in class was to write a thank-you note to one of the people they worked with in the community. Obviously this student wrote to one of a student she worked with. Here is what she wrote later to her TA (with no identifying information included): "I wanted to thank you for a great semester. I really enjoyed your class and enjoyed having you as a teacher. I just wanted to let you know that you don't need to deliver my message I wrote to a certain student at [X school]. It is interesting how you told us at the begi...

Tacelosky, Kathleen. "Service-Learning as a Way to Authentic Dialogue." Hispania 91.4 (2008): 877-886. I just received the new issue of Hispania and was happy to see an article about Spanish community-based learning. The article details a Spanish service-learning course at the intermediate level and uses the theories of Martin Buber and Paulo Freire to describe ways in which the students reached an "authentic dialogue" with native speakers of Spanish. It's great to see Spanish community-based learning's expanding practice and publications. However, we need to report the negatives (and there are negatives!) along with the positives. (Darcy Lear and I have an article accepted at Hispania which does focus on the potential problems of Spanish CBL.) I found two quotes especially thought-provoking: 1. "The benefit to processing [students'] reactions to the project before it begins is that when students enter the experience with an appropriate view...

By Claire Pescheret In the continuation of completing my Spanish minor, I will be taking Spanish 318: Spanish Cultural Studies I in the spring. The class description is as follows: A critical analysis of historical events, institutions, artistic production, symbols and values representative of Spanish (Iberian) cultures. Particular emphasis on the relationship between specific cultural practices and/or values and the construction of national identities prior to 1700. This is a class that will be unlike any other Spanish class that I have taken on this campus. I am very excited to be enrolled. I feel that my work this semester in the community has really given me a great insight into the culture of a group of people I live and work with everyday. I have been exposed to the hardships they face, but also the emphasis that they constantly place on family and loved ones. Therefore, I feel proud to enter the class with a better appreciation for Spanish culture.

By Claire Pescheret 1.The class and your volunteer work is a fairly large time commitment. Make sure you can fit it into your schedule. 2. Attend class. This WILL help you on exams. 3. Participate in discussions in class. Exam questions tend to stem from these. 4. Attend a few Mi Pueblo sessions just for extra practice. 5. Select a community partner that TRULY interests you. 6. Apply your volunteer work to your future . Make it be something you can put on your resume! 7. Allow your leadership skills to shine at your community work. It will really help the teachers and show great initiative. 8. Be observant while volunteering. You will learn a lot about the culture of the Champaign community. 9. Experiment with different forms of transportation (public, walking, biking) to get to your community partners. 10. REALLY take advantage of your knowledge of Spanish in the classroom and while volunteering. Working with other people who speak Spanish is the best way to improve your own Sp...

Do our Spanish CBL students have a larger perspective on the Latino students/clients that they interact with during their time in the community? Or do they only see them during one slice of their life? I imagine that our students really lack a broader perspective about the members of our local Latino community. I also doubt that they understand how many not-for-profits in town work together. Exhibit 1: Prevention Initiative, C-U Early, Padre a Padre Program, and the Latino Partnership Outreach Committee are having the Annual Posada for all the Latino families in Champaign Urbana. Click here to see the flyer . Click here to learn more about las posadas . Various agencies are sponsoring the event and it will take place at Booker T. Washington School. This is another example of how this neighborhood school really creates a sense of community. In sum, I hope that our students can use this one little example to get a fuller understanding of the lives of the people they work with during...

By Carolyn Kloecker 1. Do you prefer more active service or work on your own time? Active (interpersonal) - Schools & after-school programs, Boy/Girl Scouts, ECIRMAC, Clases de Catequis Work on own schedule - CCRS (translation), A Woman's Place (translation), La Prensa (meetings with businesses, writing) 2. Do you want to work with kids? Yes - Schools, Boy/Girl Scouts, ECIRMAC saturday program, Clases de Catequis No - ECIRMAC, CCRS, A Woman's Place, La Prensa 3. Do you want an easier or more challenging job? (these are my opinions, feel free to correct me) Easier - Boy/Girl Scouts Medium - Schools Challenging - ECIRMAC, La Prensa 4. Do you like doing activities or more academic work? Activities (with kids) - Boy/Girl Scouts (crafts, games, learning about themselves/the community/the world), ECIRMAC saturdays (games, some tutoring, reading for fun), Clases de Catequis Academic (wi...

Spanish majors have been able to enroll for spring 2009 Spanish courses for several weeks now. I observed this about enrollments in SPAN 232 & 332: SPAN 232 "Spanish in the Community" had low enrollments across the four sections. SPAN 332 "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" was already at about 25 students. Today was the first day that minors and other students could go on-line and register for Spanish courses. I just checked, and enrollments look like this: SPAN 232 only has 19 out of 80 seats left. SPAN 332 has only gained a couple of students. Because our enrollment system doesn't keep out the students who haven't met the prerequisites, I think several SPAN 332 students will end up dropping the course. (SPAN 232 is its prerequisite.) I will be surprised if SPAN 232 is not full by the end of this week. This information shows that student demand is high for Spanish community-based learning courses. Our administrative headaches begin, however, once the seme...

It is a joy to work with our department's TAs. Yet Marcos Campillo stands out even among all our great TAs: he's intelligent, talented, connects with his students, has high standards, is creative and takes teaching seriously. Plus (most important to me), he is truly engaged with Spanish community-based learning. When one of our honor student bloggers asked for suggestions for topics to post on from now until the end of the semester, Marcos offered her some really great topics. I think that all students, not just our bloggers, could benefit from reflecting on these topics: What will you miss most about your CBL experience? An instance-example of your experience you will always remember. What Spanish classes are you planning to take in Spring, and how do you plan to connect the class to your experience? Have you learned anything about the way Latino people celebrate Xmas? Is there a Xmas play, performance, etc...with the kids you are working for? Why are those performances import...

Carolyn Kloecker So, in this very busy time at the end of the semester, those who are studying abroad next semester must go to various departments and recieve approval (signatures) for courses they plan to take abroad. While I am in Quito, Ecuador next semester, I plan to take Andean Anthropology, a Spanish Literature class, A Political Science class, and a Business/Marketing course, as well as possibly Capoeira or a fun dance class. That means a lot of running around campus for me! Only recently did I realize that many of these courses are not officially approved until after a student returns from Study Abroad. Most of the departments will sign the course approval sheet (to be turned in to the Study Abroad Office) now, but also ask that I come back with a syllabus and coursework in order to make a final approval to transfer credit to U of I from the institution abroad. So I guess what I'm doing now isn't accomplishing much, because I will have to go back anyways and have ...

By Claire Pescheret I elected to take Spanish 232 because I am attempting to complete a Spanish minor. I have taken Spanish since I was in 5th grade, and have always really enjoyed it; therefore, when coming to college I felt that it would be wise to continue my studies. Thus far, I have really enjoyed my decision. I feel that being able to speak Spanish will be a great skill for my future career. I want to go in the dental field when I get out of college. My knowledge of Spanish will be very helpful in my communication with future patients, as well as my work in the clinics through dental school. I will be able to treat a greater number of applicants as a result of my additional skill. Being able to speak Spanish will also make me a more competitive applicant for dental school, as well. I believe that my work in the community at Booker T. Washington Elementary has prepared me in working with the Spanish speaking public. I have been challenged to adapt my classroom learned lang...

I know that community-based learning students don't like it when they are asked to file during their time in the community. However, their learning goals are to improve their Spanish and knowledge of Latino cultures. Filing information on clients with Hispanic names helps them with both. And imagine the impact of mis-filing for the organizations where our students work and and their clients. That's why I was unhappy to learn that many SPAN 232 students did not do well on their exam section asking them to put some Hispanic names in alphabetical order. I can imagine that some students feel that putting names into alphabetical order isn't important. It is! It is especially important in the organizations where they work because they are dealing with clients who may not have "accommodated" to the American system of using only one last name. And it is especially important for clients whose papers are so important for their legal status, medical information and oth...

I wanted to share the e-mail below for two reasons. First, it shows how much our Spanish community-based learning students' work is appreciated in the community. Students, read on to see your work complemented! :) Second, the fact that we have a Center for Education in Small Urban Communities shows that the University of Illinois takes its collaborations with local schools seriously. So here is the e-mail: Hi Dr. Abbott, I was recently hired as Volunteer Program Coordinator at the Center for Education in Small Urban Communities in the College of Education. One of my responsibilities is to manage the S.O.A.R. after-school program at Booker T. Washington. I’m so impressed with the S.O.A.R. tutoring program and the impact our university students are having on the children. I know that some students from your Spanish class are volunteering time at BTW and doing wonderful work as tutors. It is so appreciated!!! Sarah Okner is contacting the current tutors to see if they would be...

In addition to being an internationally known researcher on aesthetic education and qualitative research methods, my friend, Prof. Liora Bresler, is working on intellectual entrepreneurship. She's teaching a graduate course this spring on this new area. Spring 2009 C & I 507/590 Academic Intellectual Entrepreneurship: Vision, Team Leading, and Creativity Tuesdays, 10-1 Liora Bresler, Instructor The overall goal of the course is to develop an entrepreneurial perspective of the role of faculty in academia. The three components of the academic endeavor--research, teaching, and service--will be conceptualized as highly entrepreneurial activities. Building on their individual passions and strengths, the course will empower students (prospective faculty) to experience each of these three components of academia along the three entrepreneurial axes: recognize opportunities, acquire resources, and create a new entity of value. Specifically, the course will address the following: 1. Exp...

By Carolyn Kloecker I am starting to get very anxious-excited for my semester abroad that I will be spending in Quito, Ecuador. I will be leaving on January 3rd, and I can't wait to be able to speak Spanish almost everywhere at any time. Of course I'll still be communicating with my family and friends back here in the U.S. in many ways: Skype phone, Skype (webcam), G-chat, E-mail, and my blog! I have recently started a blog of my own entitled 'Carolina en Ecuador'. I welcome anyone to look at it, the address is www.carolinaenecuador.blogspot.com . This is not only a great way to communicate with people back home, but blogs are also a great reference for the future. I know that I personally benefitted from the blog of a previous 232 student, Pedro Dominguez, as he talked about his travels in Ecuador. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with some reflexión at least once a week while I am in Ecuador.

By Claire Pescheret In addition to working in the community at Booker T. Washington, I also volunteer at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department. My job is to educate children and their families about their dental health. Each day I volunteer I set up in a corner of the playroom in the Mother and Child Care area. If the children or parents are interested, I do a teeth brushing demonstration, teach them a bit about their oral health, and distribute toothbrushes and handouts. Seeing as this clinic serves the greater Champaign-Urbana area, as does Booker T. Washington Elementary, I have been exposed to a similar sub-set of people. Many of the patrons I speak with are Spanish speaking. In these instances I have been able to use my Spanish! This exposure has been challenging, but wonderful, as well. The parents have been so happy that I am able to relay important health information to them in their native language. I feel that my experience at BTW has truly help prepare me to sp...

The University of Illinois' Office of the Vice Chancellor for Public Engagement will host a symposium this spring, and they announced their call for proposals. I love the fact that students and community partners are invited to submit. I will suggest that one of the student teams in SPAN 332 present a poster, and I will let Spanish & Illinois' community partners know about this opportunity to tout their programs. Call for proposals: 2009 Public Engagement Symposium and Tech Showcase ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The inaugural Public Engagement Symposium & Technology Showcase will be March 9. Faculty and staff members, students and community partners can submit proposals for poster sessions, performances, concurrent sessions and panel discussions. Learn from and support the quality and variety of our scholarly and creative public engagement efforts. URL: http://www.conferences.uiuc.edu/engagementsymposium/ Kristine Juhl Ca...

SPAN 208 "Oral Spanish" is a prerequisite for SPAN 232 "Spanish in the Community." This spring we will offer only four sections of 208. This is one of our most popular courses, but it is not a requirement for the major or minor. So, if you want to get into SPAN 208 (0r SPAN 141, 204, 320), click here and consider the following announcement for a study-abroad program in Barcelona, Spain this summer .

Many SPAN 232 students are studying to become teachers and wish there were more opportunities to get hands-on experience in the classroom. There are! And many of our SPAN 232 students come to appreciate service learning by this point in the semester and wish more courses used it. They do! Here is a an e-mail I received today from Val Werpetinski about a course that may interest our students. Hi Ann, Below, I've pasted an announcement for an innovative service-learning course, which may be of interest to some of your students. The course provides a unique opportunity for students to explore environmental education, build leadership and teamwork skills, and get involved in the community in a meaningful way. It would be great if you're able to forward the announcement to those who might still be course shopping for spring. I'm happy to answer any questions about the course. Thanks much, Valeri Werpetinski Center for Teaching Excellence werpetin@illinois.edu *******************...

I'd like to thank University of Illinois design student, Christopher Gregory, for his work as graphic recorder of this semester's Community-Campus Summits. Click here to see his representations of Summit 2 .

I received globalization101.org's newsletter this morning. As usual, they have very interesting information related to language, culture and globalization--all issues of importance to Spanish community-based learning. I was particularly interested in the notes and posts related to President-elect Obama. What the World Thinks: Barack Obama The New Clickocracy President Obama: World Citizen It's good for our students to see global reaction to Obama's election; that could lead to a discussion about how the Latinos that they work with in the community may be viewing his election, particularly their hopes for immigration reform. (Though his vote for the wall between the US and Mexico still rankles me.) I'm interested in social media and its uses for Spanish community-based learning, and "The New Clickocracy" offers interesting insights. Finally, it's great for students to see the power of living abroad, learning languages, and being immersed in many differ...

I love Facebook (and so do my students), and I'm always interested in finding ways to make students' Spanish community-based learning experiences translate to their future careers. So I was very interested in an article I saw recently, " Social networking sites dos and don'ts " from Careerbuilder.com . "Employers are checking job applicant's profiles on sites like Facebook, Brightfuse and LinkedIn, according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey," the article states. It also quotes an expert who says: "Get rid of your digital dirt [when job hunting]." Specific dos and don'ts in the article include: Do update your profile regularly. Don't badmouth your current or previous employer. Do join groups...selectively. Don't mention your job search if you're still employed. Do go on the offensive. Don't forget others can see your friends. These all make perfect sense. But what does that have to do with Spanish community-based le...

A lot of the students in our "Spanish in the Community" course are studying to become high school Spanish teachers. I also know of several of our students who got jobs teaching Spanish and used their summers to get a Masters while abroad. So I thought this e-mail might be of interest to some of Spanish & Illinois' current and former students: Estimados Señoras y Señores: Greetings from Southern Oregon University. We in Foreign Languages and Literatures would like invite you to our Summer Language Institute. SOU has developed a challenging and practical Master of Arts in Spanish Language Teaching with a curriculum that is completed in three summers in beautiful and quaint Guanajuato, Mexico. The program is designed for middle school, high school, and community college teachers. Each session is hosted by a group of master teachers from around the nation, and our program provides practical courses to improve your teaching proficiency. Please consider joining us thi...

Madhu Viswanathan is a Faculty Fellow at the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership , so I have gotten to know him and his work through that connection. I admire his research and the not-for-profit that he founded. Furthermore, his work is the basis for the new Business 101 course. This morning I received an e-mail about the Business 101 Poster Session. I will attend. I wish that my students next semester in "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" would have the opportunity to attend. Not only is it important to see the content of the Business 101 students' posters, but I'm more and more convinced that poster sessions can be a more valuable learning tool for our students than the typical research paper. Why? Students need to utilize all four skills--listening, speaking, reading and writing--to produce the posters and participate in the poster session. Effective communication of your ideas in a poster more closely mimics the kinds of communication our students already...

By Carolyn Kloecker I'm a little bit afraid about the lack of Spanish speaking that will most likely occur over my Thanksgiving break. I am often jealous of students who have the opportunity to speak to their families in another language, but I realize that there are other opportunities to speak Spanish outside of school, and I also know that I will not "lose" my knowledge of the language over a short break. Here are some strategies I may use over break to keep speaking Spanish in a predominantly English-speaking environment: Visit friends I know from my Spanish-immersion camp, or talk to them on the phone Force my friends who took Spanish in high school to speak a few sentences with me each day Walk around having a fake conversation on my cell phone in Spanish (suggestion from Brandon Lanners, one of our study abroad advisors) Listen to plenty of music! (my favorites are Reik, Julieta Venegas, Fonseca, and Jesse & Joy) Order food at a Mexican restaurant in Spani...

By Claire Pescheret Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines a volunteer as “a person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service: as- a: one who enters into military service voluntarily b (1): one who renders a service or takes part in a transaction while having no legal concern or interest (2): one who receives a conveyance or transfer of property without giving valuable consideration.” Basically, this is an individual who sets aside their own time in order to benefit the needs of others without receiving a monetary reward. I find volunteering such a rewarding experience. To understand that you are helping another person so much just out of the goodness of your own heart is a phenomenal feeling. This emotion, in and of itself, suffices for me as a “reward.” The work I do is very basic, but I am such an important part of the student’s and teacher’s day. Not only am I benefiting the teachers by assisting with some of their daily tasks, but I am als...

By Claire Pescheret Working with young children at Booker T. Washington has been a lovely experience. I have never spoken to children so little in Spanish before! As with any child, their maturity for such a small size always shocks me. Their brains can absorb and understand so much! In my particular case, the students at Booker T. Washington are attempting to become bilingual. This process begins at the young age of 3 or 4 in pre-k, where I volunteer. These children practice their English during designated times throughout the school day. Since they are also fluent in Spanish, they are learning their colors and letters in this language. As much as English is something that is important for these students to be exposed to, more of an emphasis is placed on the children mastering Spanish. The children are young, and, as with any language, even though they are able to communicate in Spanish, their grammar and pronunciation are not always stellar. There are even certain stu...

By Mujtaba Akhter My work at Champaign Central High School consists of communicating with high school students for essentially the whole time period. Although I tutor them in various subjects, many times we digress into stories about our own lives and just general small talk. Since I speak in Spanish with many of the students, there were always a few words I would hear that I never understood. I always just figured it to be some technical word that I would learn later, but finally a couple days ago I figured out what was being said. I was tutoring a student in geometry and was saying "you need to look at the line from this point to this point" which in Spanish was "necesitas ver la linea de este punto a este punto." However, I seem to have been saying the word "punto" fast and not pronouncing the "n" which leads to the word becoming a swear. The students around started laughing and then told me what I was saying. Although I knew...