Spanish & Illinois

My name is Brittany Koteles, and this semester I am going through the process of finalizing an Individual Plan of Study in the college of Liberal Arts & Sciences . With every other major I was considering, there always seemed to be a part of it that didn't fit with what I wanted to do. This is when I started contemplating the possibility of my IPS program. The major, Community Service & Development, seeks to provide a student with a foundation focusing on the structure and interactions within communities, the effects of socioeconomic and cultural factors on communities, development methods, and an understanding of the social system's structure. The remainder of the curriculum is based in both service learning opportunities and internships, as well as specific areas of service the student wishes to pursue (Spanish, international aid, education, etc.). This component of the major allows students pursue special interests within the realm of community service. The curricul...

The Refugee Center needs students to help out with a fundraiser Banquet on February 28 from 6pm to 11pm. Enjoy the company of community members and listen to performances by an African choir! Students will be helping with set up, serving food, and take down. If you are interested in helping please contact Deb (217) 344-8455 at the Refugee Center. The fundraiser will be held at the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church on 708 Main Street in Urbana. It’s a great way to get to know the community and make up some hours if you are waiting for your background check!

I must admit that I often think of the predominance of literary studies in Spanish departments as sometimes at odds with the on-the-ground work of social justice in a Spanish communty service learning course. It doesn't have to be that way, of course. My PhD is in literature. The critical thinking skills I learned in my training have transferred easily to the work of teaching culture, language and professional skills to students working within the local Latino community. The pleasure of "story" behind my passion for literature is still there whenever I hear an immigrant's story--or when I read a student describe their reaction to hear immigration stories, sometimes for the first time. And there are many more connections between literary studies and well-designed community-service learning. However, I also learned to analyze power dynamics during my PhD, and the position of literature as "real"/"important"/"rewarded" within Spanish program...

It's very nice when a blog does what it is actually supposed to do: create dialogue. That's why I was happy to see Jose G. Ricardo-Osorio's comment on the post I wrote about his recent article in Foreign Lanuguage Annals. I want to highlight his comments here because they go into more detail than in the article itself (in which CSL was just one of many assessment methods he presented): Dear Ann, I am glad to know that you found the data I presented in my article very informative. I look forward to reading your research on student learning outcomes assessment in CSL programs. I think that one way to use CSL as a key assessment is to random sample the students who will participate in the program. As you assert, using CSL as an assessment measure can be a very complex (and logistically impossible)endeavour. However, it can be used to assess certain students. If we accept that students learn at different paces and by various means, we must also embrace the notion of assessing ...

Update below. The hectic period of student enrollment and scheduling in the Spanish community service learning courses is almost over. It is a difficult period for all: students have to make decisions about a course that is different than what they may have expected, TAs have to field issues that they never had to touch in the other classes they have taught, and I have to bring together the needs of the community partners, students, TAs and the program itself in about two weeks. Whew! But as a reminder of why I--and the others involved--do it, I received this positive feedback from a Board Member at A Woman's Fund : " I can’t begin to tell you what an impact your program of offering translation has done for the residents and clients of A Woman’s Place. You’ve made it possible for us to reach communities of women and children that we simply haven’t been able to serve ." This Board Member is putting together a panel for the Public Engagement Symposium , and I will participa...

I am very happy that this semester almost all the students in my "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" course already took "Spanish in the Community" and did community-based learning. That means that they know what the course is about and it's really what they want. It means that I can spend my time in the classroom talking about social entrepreneurship because they already learned all about community-based learning. And it means that they can take responsibility for their satisfaction with their CBL experience. In class last Thursday I asked all students to write down their response to these two questions: What are you going to do differently in your CBL work this semester in order to be happier with your experience? What worked well for you that you plan to continue doing in your CBL work this semester? For #1, one students stated that she was going to work in a different organization so that she could have a different set of learning experiences. For #2, one stude...

One more item of interest from Pink's February/March 2009 issue. John Gray--familiar to almost everyone for his work on "Mars and Venus"--writes about gender differences in workplace communication. He cites this example: "At the copy machine, a woman might say, 'This thing isn't working.' On 'Venus,' that's a way to let off steam. Another woman might sympathize with her. On 'Mars,' however, the man is thinking, 'Why is she telling me this? Does she want me to fix it?' He misinterprets her statement as a sign of weakness." This made me think of all the miscommunications that can happen in the community based on cultural differences. In the past, some students who worked at the Refugee Center showed in their reflections that they were upset by the communication style of the main Latina counselor there. Basically they felt that this counselor was "mean" with some of the clients. I know this counselor well. ...

Since I am teaching my "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" course again this semester, I am thinking much more about business and its intersections with Spanish, culture and community-based learning. So I was really happy to get the latest issue of Pink in my mailbox this week. It always has articles that give me teaching ideas, confirm my intuition about something I'd already been thinking about, and something Darcy and me to chat about (we both subscribe). In this issue I noticed a message that emerged more than once: the importance of mentors. In the article, "18 Women Gurus," the author asks Rene Mauborgne, "Do you think that women should seek out gurus?" She answers this: The question I would encourage all women to ask is: Who is the person they want to be--professionally, personally, in their relationships with their family and friends, so that they are proud of the person they are and grow into being? Then think about people who possess these qua...

As usual, the Winter 2008 issue of Foreign Language Annals if full of good information for language instructors. While there are no articles specifically about community service learning, the topic does show up in one article: Jose G. Ricardo-Osorio. "A Study of Foreing Language Learning Outcomes Assessment in U.S. Undergraduate Education." Foreign Language Annals 41.4 (2008): 590-610. I have been thinking a lot lately about what a degree in Spanish really means. The obvious conclusion is that it means different things for different stakeholders: Professors think it has to do with critical thinking skills and an overall knowledge of language and culture--usually taught through linguistics and literature. Students think it means learning to speak Spanish and learn about the people of Spanish-speaking countries. Employers think it means fluency. Those may be gross generalizations, but as generalizations I think they are accurate. (Write a comment to agree or disagree!) I...

I'm redefining success in a community-based learning context again. Normally, when a student drops a course, you would consider that a failure. You might even take it personally? And with so many students who respond positively to the chance to use their Spanish in the real world, it's actually kind of surprising when they do drop. But given the extra responsibilities that everyone incurs in a CBL class, sometimes the students who do not drop can be more problematic than those who do. Today I received the e-mail below from a student who took a hard look at his schedule, the course requirement and the syllabus. He came the conclusion that as a responsible student he could not over-commit himself. That, to me, is success: to communicate our expectations clearly and to have students make an honest assessment of their ability to meet them--or not. Here is the e-mail. It is also a model because it is written succinctly, clearly and professionally. "After giving this some mo...

I know that 74% is a C, but it feels like an A+ to me right now. 85 out of 115 Spanish CBL students scheduled themselves on the wiki by the beginning of day 2 of the semester. (I hope I did my math correctly!) I think this is a variation on that old 80/20 adage: about 20% of our Spanish CBL students create 80% of our administrative work.

In my previous post I mentioned that it is important to not send too many e-mails to students. They get "e-mail fatigue." And rightfully so. So how do you craft a welcome message that eliminates (hopefully!) the need for follow-up messages? Below is my "welcome e-mail." See if it can work for you, too. Subject: SPAN 232 and SPAN 332 Students: Sign up now! Dear SPAN 232 and 332 students, As you saw when you signed up for SPAN 232 or SPAN 332, you are required to work 28 hours with a community partner for this class. Please do the following: 1. Make sure you have the prerequisites for the course you have signed up for. We will check them the first day of class, and if you do not have the prereqs or permission from Prof. Ann Abbott, you will have to drop the class. You might as well drop now and read no further if you don't meet the course's requirements. 2. Go to http://cblschedule09.pbwiki.com/ , read all the information (there is a lot!), and sign up for you...

The beginning of this semester has gone unusually smoothly. I like to think this is because of some systems/procedures that we have adopted for this semester. If you are running your own CBL course or program, you know how chaotic things can be in the beginning. Here are some the solutions we have put in place: 1. Problem. Students add/drop. During the first two weeks of the semester students are free to drop courses and add others. Whenever a student drops a Spanish CBL course, another student immediately fills it. This leads to several problems. First, we aren't notified when students drop/add, so we have to continually scan the rosters for this info. If the student who dropped already signed up to work in the community, we need to delete him/her from the schedule. Students who add have missed the e-mails telling them what to do, so are "lost" in the beginning. Solution. Accept this ebb and flow. I no longer try to get students organized before the semester starts. It...

Carolyn Kloecker was one of our student bloggers last semester. She wrote about her experiences working with a Girl Scout troop for Latinas in Champaign. She also mentioned several times how excited she was to study abroad in Ecuador next semester. Well, Carolina is there now, and she sent me this message: " I started volunteering in Ecuador today! We organize after-school activities for a group of kids in Lumbisi, an indigenous town near Quito. We also help them with their homework and sometimes with English. It's great! I'll be going twice a week, from 3pm-5pm on mondays and wednesdays. Hasta luego!" Click here to find out more about the study abroad program that Carolina is on . This program is highly recommended for students who are truly interested in doing service in the community. Another former student blogger, Liz Girten, also studied on this program. (My other recommendation is that you study abroad for a whole academic year; you will thank me for the...

Although we have never been able to nail down a community partnership, I try to follow Hope Community Health Center 's work carefully and support it. Click on the image to enlarge it, and if you are in the Champaign-Urbana area, consider attending the event. Students: Although Hope Community Health Center is not one of our official community partners this semester, if you take the initiative to arrange your own volunteer work and schedule with them, you can certainly have that count for your CBL work this semester. Cristina Medrano, the founder of the clinic, attended the Social Entrepreneurship Summer Institute while she was putting the clinic together, and I met her there. It is very exciting to see how the clinic has grown and how Cris has been very entrepreneurial in this important endeavor for the community. Congrats, Cris!

It's very exciting to check in with our community partners and see what their plans are for this upcoming semester and what they have been doing during the break. I just heard from Lila Moore with SOAR, and she sent along good information about that after-school program. You don't have to be in a community-based learning course to work in the community, so consider signing up to work with this program whether you're in SPAN 232 or 332 or not. S.O.A.R. @ B.T. Washington Elementary The S.O.A.R. after-school tutoring program at B.T. Washington Elementary is looking for enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers to provide homework and reading help to students in grades K-5 who are most in need of some extra support. Currently about 45 children, mainly Latino and African American, attend the free after-school program. The S.O.A.R. program is a collaboration of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the College of Education, and Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club. S.O.A...

What do coffee and community-based learning have to do with each other? Starbucks is offering a free cup of Starbucks coffee if you pledge 5 hours of volunteer time. What a great way to "double-dip." Make your five hours count for your Spanish community-based learning credit and for a free cup of coffee. Click here to find out more . Tell the barista: "Un café, por favor." ***** Our semester starts on Tuesday, January 20. We will have around 120 Spanish 232 and 332 students working in the community this semester. During these difficult economic times, these students can give a hand to our community partners who are doing so much work for some of our community's most vulnerable members. That, and a cup of coffee, can make you feel really good about community-based learning.