Spanish Community Service Learning in a Master's Program

by Ann Abbott

I am very happy to see that the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland, College Park has created a Master's Degree in Applied Hispanic Linguistics that includes community service learning (CSL). 

I think that the combination of courses will appeal to students. I also think that this is by no accident--the description of the program shows that they have conceived of this program from their own academic perspectives but also from the students' perspectives and goals.

This is a sign of the growing place of Spanish community service learning not just as a pedagogical tool for our undergraduates, but an effective one for graduate studies, too. I would also love to see programs that include CSL in the methods course--or even as the topic of a separate course. (I know exactly how I would teach that course!)

Congratulations and good luck to Professors Manel Lacorte, Roberta Levine (whom I know well from CIBER business languages conferences) and Ana Patricia Rodriguez.

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