Spanish & Illinois

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...

by Ann Abbott I'm our department's Director of Undergraduate Studies. I work hard with our advisor, Tasha Robles, to try to increase the number of students in our courses and our major/minor. It's not easy. And yesterday I was sad to see that our numbers are low compared to the Spanish programs in most other universities in the Big Ten. (By the way, Indiana University is doing something right!) And it's even harder when students don't have enough information to get excited about our courses. As of right now, with just a couple of days before students begin registering for spring 2017 courses, this is our situation: Several sections of "generic" courses don't have a title or description in the online course catalog. The advisor has received no flyers about any courses. I haven't seen any promotional materials for any courses except for Basque. I'll share the checklist below with our faculty. How do you advertise your co...

by Ann Abbott One of the hats I wear in my job is Director of Undergraduate Studies. I work closely with our advisor, I speak directly with potential students and their parents, and I am on our department's curriculum committee. On the one hand, I am passionate about Spanish and how it can help students understand our world differently, better. Studying Spanish, studying abroad in Barcelona for one year, and doing the PhD in Spanish literature gave me many wonderful experiences and tools. That was back in the 80s and 90s. On the other hand, I see some very important tensions that make me wonder about the long-term growth of Spanish as a serious, engaged, intellectual program on US college campuses. 1. Spain-centric programs Spain has central role in both the typical curriculum and in students' imagination of "Spanish," yet Spain is a small piece of the Spanish-speaking world and of Spanish-language cultural production. 2. Spanish as a tool Many student...

by Ann Abbott One of the hats I wear in my job is Director of Undergraduate Studies. I work closely with our advisor, I speak directly with potential students and their parents, and I am on our department's curriculum committee. On the one hand, I am passionate about Spanish and how it can help students understand our world differently, better. Studying Spanish, studying abroad in Barcelona for one year, and doing the PhD in Spanish literature gave me many wonderful experiences and tools. That was back in the 80s and 90s. On the other hand, I see some very important tensions that make me wonder about the long-term growth of Spanish as a serious, engaged, intellectual program on US college campuses. 1. Spain-centric programs Spain has central role in both the typical curriculum and in students' imagination of "Spanish," yet Spain is a small piece of the Spanish-speaking world and of Spanish-language cultural production. 2. Spanish as a tool Many...

What books do you have on your shelf? Read on to find out Mark Wehling's book recommendations. by Ann Abbott In last semester's "Business Spanish" class, student teams had to do a networking project that culminated in each team reaching out to one of my former students to ask for career advice. (We did the work over several weeks, but here's a link with most of the information about the project .) My hope is that students learned about how to network appropriately. But of course the real gift was that all three former students answered the current students and gave them valuable advice. Such valuable advice. I won't delay any further, just enough to say that I had goose bumps reading Mark's reply (below). He is truthful, inspiring and detailed. I think he should write a book. Here's his email! Hola Kristin, Shamir, Haley, Daniel, y Xuefei (quieren copiarl@s?) Me da mucho placer poder contestar estas preguntas y ayudarles de esta mane...

by Ann Abbott I recently received a message from a former student who applied to the " English Opens Doors" program in Chile  and asked for a letter of recommendation.  " I'm emailing you to let you know that I applied for the English Opens Doors Program. It's a government run volunteer program in Chile were they place you in a classroom (5th-12th grade) with another Chilean teacher and you help teach the speaking/listening part of English." I was delighted to write her letter because she was a model student and person. (As an aside, you might be interested to see what I ask all my students to provide me when they ask for a letter . I didn't ask this student, though, because the form was short and the details of her work with me were fresh in my mind.) Furthermore, one of my former students went on this same program several years ago: Jason Flynn . I quickly submitted her letter and received this message from her in response: "I wil...

by Chris Levine Editor's note: In my SPAN 332 "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" course, students must work on a community-based group project. This semester, one of the teams worked on creating profiles of former students of Spanish who have gone on to be entrepreneurs or work in an entrepreneurial environment. I'm so proud of these former students and their stories. --Ann Abbott Jessie exemplifies social entrepreneurship in her daily work. As the Director of Marketing & Communications at the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (IHCC), I assist Hispanic and other minority business owners develop strategic marketing and public relations campaigns. With the help of my colleagues, we are able to serve Hispanic business owners, providing free business, economic development and educational resources to enhance business practices and increase the success of Hispanic businesses. Currently the Hispanic community is growing at a faster rate than any other grou...

by Kelsey Marquez “¡ZAP!”  “¡ZAP! ¡Que lástima!” say the children when they get a popsicle stick that says “¡ZAP!” Zap is a game I play with the children from Garden Hills. Their teacher has written sounds on different popsicles sticks, such as “rra, la, ma”. She then writes “zap” on a few of the other popsicle sticks. The object of the game is to obtain the most popsicle sticks with sounds but when you pick a stick with the word “zap” you must put all your sticks back in the bucket. Mrs. X [all names have been eliminated] was trying to get through her daily lesson as usual but it seemed impossible to get the children to focus. Some of the kids looked exhausted while others kept fidgeting with their fingers. The teacher decided that it was best to let them play “Zap” for fifteen minutes so those that were tired could participate in a less energy-demanding activity and those that were restless could release some energy as well. All the children got into groups of ...

by Ann Abbott As language departments face decreasing enrollments, one thing that we can do is improve our marketing. When we think of marketing, we often first think about creating slick brochures and websites. The trick, though, is to first define your target audience with precision. Then you have to tailor your message to the benefits that they care about. (What pain do they feel, and how to can you alleviate it?) Finally, you have to know how to get the message to them: where will they see it, how will they find it, and when will it reach them?  I'll write more about that another day, but for now, I just want to say that many language departments are not effectively marketing to the one set of students they can most easily access: students who are already enrolled in their program. More specifically: you already have the emails of all the students who are enrolled in the last semester of your basic language program so at the very least reach out to them with a mess...