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...

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...

Service learning in liberal arts and sciences from Annie Abbott by Ann Abbott Next week I´ll give a workshop on Service Learning . My goal will be to help people from many disciplines envision how service learning can work for their courses and within our local community. Workshop Description Research shows that service learning helps students better understand "messy problems"--the kinds of complex, interconnected issues that challenge our communities and that lie at the heart of our disciplines. In this workshop we will start with the basics of service learning to understand what it is, why the AACU lists it as a "high-impact educational practice," and what it looks like in a variety of disciplines. Then we will turn to our local community. As we identify strengths and challenges within our cities and nearby areas, we will sketch out specific ways we can connect our courses and disciplines to community-identified needs. Service learning student...

One Instruction at a Time: A Teaching Tip for Foreign Languages from Annie Abbott by Ann Abbott On this blog I usually tackle "big picture" items. I think a lot about what a Spanish major should look like in the US today. I use it as a platform to hopefully make Spanish community service learning more accessible to anyone thinking about teaching with it. I want to share my students' reflections so they have a strong voice in how we construct (or don't) our courses. I'd love it if Business Spanish and specific topics like social entrepreneurship and bilingual social media marketing gained resonance in our field. But I started out, many years ago, as a course supervisor. Of SPAN 101 and 102. That was my first gig. I worked on the syllabus, did classroom observations, put together tests, soaked up ideas from my professors and mentors, and much more. I had to pay attention to the little things that make classes work. And even more specifically, that ma...