Spanish & Illinois

by Ann Abbott It was the week after spring break, and I had just returned from a wonderful yet long trip to Japan to see my daughter who is studying abroad in Nagoya. I was looking forward to seeing my students later that day, but I wasn't sure how I was going to make the class interesting and engaging. Scrolling through my Twitter feed, I found just what --and who-- I needed: @tanyaboza. I have followed Prof. Tanya Golash Boza's work for years: her blogs, her books, her articles. But it was only recently that I found her on Twitter. She is just as a smart and generous there as I had come to expect from her. She shared the series of videos about race and racism that she has developed for her students. She shares her publications and thoughts freely. And on the morning when I needed inspiration, she provided it in this tweet: I am pleased to share my latest publication with you, on how families experience the deportation of a loved one: https://t.co/DnStaA5mbJ p...

by Ann Abbott I think it's really important to use the first day of class to set expectations and get students excited. I try to teach it as a typical class so that they know what to expect. However, I have learned over the years that for community service learning courses, it is a good idea to ease into things, to take one step at a time, to use class time to tie up the many loose ends this kind of pedagogy can create. I usually post my lesson plans on the UIUC Spanish Community Service Learning Facebook Page . Why? Because I post a lot of links that we then use during class for information and analysis. I also often have students write responses to my posts as a way to share their analyses, questions, etc. So look for the blue picture above that will accompany my lesson plans for this semester. With that in mind, here are my lesson plans for the first week of SPAN 332 Spanish and Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures and Communities. Week 1, Day 1: Presentación del cur...

Look below to click on the links from the slide above. By Ann Abbott  On Friday I will give two talks. One is a noon-hour workshop on service learning, and the other is a quick description of a classroom project for our School's Share Fair . Here's what I will share in the second talk. Connecting Students with Alumni: A Classroom Networking Project Making the transition from language student to working professional can be a difficult and mysterious process to our current students. In my Business Spanish course, students work on a networking project that connects them to former students who were in their seats just a few years ago but are now in the working world. I will share the specific steps and resources I use for this activity—from researching alumni LinkedIn profiles to writing a “cold” networking email. This activity can be adapted to any language and any course.  On their end-of-the-semester course evaluations, several students listed this project as o...

This flowchart makes the information very clear: there is no "legal path" for anyone except the very privileged. by Ann Abbott Florencia Henshaw invited me to speak to her students in SPAN 308 " Spanish in the US ," and I was delighted to do so. I think we need even more of an emphasis on Spanish in the US and that students need to understand better the complex realities of Spanish and Spanish speakers in the US. The topic of the week was "El e spa ñol en la vida pública." I don't know exactly how she was planning to frame that topic, but I decided to talk about our public discourse towards undocumented Spanish-speaking immigrants and our public policies related to them and their lives. I'll share my notes and resources below in a list format. I only had twenty minutes to talk, and I didn't take the time to structure this as a lesson like I normally would. But maybe something here will strike you and you could develop an actual lesson...

Week 12 by Ann Abbott Thanksgiving break is nearing, but we still have two more weeks to go. So I need to keep my eye on my goals: give students opportunities to take information and transform it into something useful. In other words, read the book then come to class and DO SOMETHING. Our last chapter of the semester was voted on and chosen by students: Chapter 14, Las perspectivas para el futuro. Last year students chose the same chapter. I probably would have chosen the same one, too. Lunes: Lectura comercial, Capítulo 14  *Changes below After a quick review of the main topics and trends, I will put students into groups and give them the following assignment: create a four-year plan for college students that will prepare them to be successful in the environment the authors outline. Here are some details they will need to fill in: Classes . The should suggest at least two courses per semester. They can "create" two courses; the others should be pulled from co...

by Ann Abbott It's so hard to believe that we're already in Week 11 of the semester. On our campus, classes last for 14 1/2 weeks, so now that we're in November there truly is not much time left. As always, I both wish for more time (to do more with the students) and for it to come to its timely conclusion (I can feel that we're all in a slump). Here are my plans for this week. Lunes: Una vista panorámica del Perú y de Bolivia (Capítulo 9, Éxito comercial ) We´re still on Chapter 9 of Éxito comercial this week, and today we´re focusing on sections focusing on the countries of Peru and Bolivia. This is how I will use our 50 minutes together. First, I will put students in six pairs (or groups of three) and give them an assignment.  Find, analyze and describe one Peruvian business in the tourism sector. Find, analyze and describe one Peruvian business in the mining sector. Find, analyze and describe one Peruvian business in the petroleum sector. Resea...

by Ann Abbott This week we have moved on to Chapter 9 in Éxito comercial : Marketing I. This is especially pertinent to our class because of the marketing projects that students are working on for La Línea and Spanish Advising. Here's what we'll do. Lunes: Lectura comercial This is a long, detailed reading. My goal with students is to pull out just a few main concepts and then illustrate them with examples. 1. Warm up . I began by asking students: Tell me one concept or one piece of information that stood out to you in this reading. We listened to a few of their answers. (I'm always impressed by what they take away from the course; these readings are not easy!) 2. Conversar sin parar.  I like to start most of my classes by putting students into pairs, giving them a topic (or no topic!), setting the timer on my iPhone and telling them to hablar cinco minutos sin parar . It is a good way for them to get to know each other, use their Spanish and prepare for th...

by Ann Abbott This week we will work again on Chapter 6 of Éxito comercial: La oficina. Last week we covered the Lectura comercial and the Lectural cultural . This week we will do the readings about the countries and the minicaso práctico. Lunes: ¿Qué sabes de...? This reading is about Costa Rica and Panama. I'll divide the students into the following groups: Costa Rica: Export. You must advise a US business person who is interested in creating an export business to Costa Rica. Advise him/her on what products/services he/she could successfully export and why. What risks/benefits should she/he anticipate? What specific steps should he/she take before making a final decision? Costa Rica: Import. You must advise a US business person who is interested in creating a business with import(s) from Costa Rica. Advise him/her on what products/services he/she could successfully import and why. What risks/benefits should she/he anticipate? What specific steps should he/she take be...

by Ann Abbott This week we're back to working from the textbook, Éxito comercial . We´re on Chapter 6 La oficina. Lunes: lectura comercial 1. We began with three minutes of "conversar sin parar" in Spanish like I often do. I paired students from different social media consulting teams and asked them to share about their experiences. As a follow-up, I asked the students what they are learning. Silence. I finally received three answers, that showed me that they are learning about things that go beyond "just" marketing. That is good! 2. Then I put students in groups of three. I gave them the following scenario: The three of you are moving to Barcelona, Spain to begin your own business in bilingual social media marketing (just like you are doing in this class). You have a budget of 4,000 Euros to set up your office space with all the necessary equipment. Use Amazon  and Apple in Spain to price your products. You also need to choose the best office spa...

Week 7 of my "Business Spanish" class by Ann Abbott I'm juggling a lot of things and several important, looming deadlines. So I'm just going to jump right into it. Week 7 was great! We began work on the Networking Project for the course. (I'll describe the entire project in more detail later.) Here's what we did. Lunes I told students that we were going to be working on this project, and that I would give more details later. In general, though,  Final goal They will "cold call" (or cold contact via the Internet) three professionals and invite them to Skype into our class during the last week of the semester. They can talk to us about their work, their path from college student to professional and their use (or not) of Spanish. In order to accomplish that: Today's goal Research.  I gave my current students a list of my former students whose careers might interest them . I assigned each student someone on the list (some student...

by Ann Abbott Lunes: Una vista panorámica de México Éxito comercial, Capítulo 3, pp. 73-83 Usually I like to have the students dig in to the information during class, analyzing, discussing and then presenting their work. However, today I want my students to be inspired about working in Mexico, not put off by the negative information.  We´re going to look at one of my former students, David Pérez Hernández, who just spent one year in Mexico. I know for sure they will be inspired by him! Here are his words for my students: 1) How convenient it is to be in Mexico. You are in a totally different country than the US, but because of the proximity you cant help to feel so close to home. Youre in the same time zone, youre a quick plane ride away from home, alot of the comfort foods make it to Mexico, and youre always 1.5 hours away from some of the best beaches in the world! 2) The second is how important Mexico and its people are to the US. The US trade...