Spanish & Illinois

by Ann Abbott This is the week when students' work in the community has to come all together. There are always a few students for whom things become complicated (a delayed background check, unanswered emails, etc.), but ensuring that students are set up with their partners by Week 2 makes the rest of the semester so much easier. Which reminds me: have you seen the "complete guide" to setting up your Spanish community service learning course that I shared on my blog some time ago?  I hope that it will help others with the nagging details that can sometimes decide whether or not a CSL course takes off or not. Día 1, Semana 2 Class cancelled; orientations with the community partner.  A few years ago, I decided that I had to give time in class for ensuring that students were set up for success in the community. Somehow I had the notion that if I wasn't "teaching" during class, I wasn't doing my job. Instead, giving students time to decide which...

by Ann Abbott It's a hard time to be teaching about immigration and doing Spanish community service learning in the US. Every day--every hour--the news about immigration reform and a fix for DACA is more and more soul-crushing. And that's not an exaggeration. But truth be told, it's always a hard time to teach about immigration in the US. It's a new semester, and this is the plan I followed for the first week of classes in SPAN 332 Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities. Día 1, Semana 1 1. It took me a while to set up the laptop and become familiarized with the classroom. While I did that, students jumped right in. Three minutes: introduce yourself to someone in the class (dar la mano, decir "Hola, me llamo X" y luego continuar). Two minutes: do the same with someone new. One minute: do the same with someone new. 2. I presented the three steps to the entrepreneurship process that we will refer to throughout th...