As part of their midterm exam, my Spanish & Entrepreneurship students had to revise a fundraising letter they wrote for a previous reflective essay. The letters included anecdotes and descriptions of the work that their community partners do, and I want to share some of them here. I'll post one a day for several days.
Anecdote 1
I work at LealSchool, an elementary school in Urbana.Leal has classrooms for kids who are native English speakers and for those who come from Spanish-speaking families with little ability to speak English.When the students are better able to speak English, they are then integrated into classrooms where English and Spanish are spoken together.I work in a 2nd grade classroom, with students who speak little English, and the instruction is mainly in Spanish.
LealSchool really needs help in its Spanish-speaking classes.There are many kids in each class, and the individual attention they receive from the tutors helps them immensely.Working with these kids is very rewarding.Every day that I help out, it is clear that the students are learning more and more.When I first started volunteering, one student asked me for help all the time.When the teacher would assign a project in class, his hand shot up instantly every time because he wanted help and didn’t want to try it himself.However, as time goes on, I’ve helped him realize that if he thinks it through and puts his mind to it, he can come up with his own ideas for each project.Seeing him and the other students progress is rewarding and makes me feel like I made a difference in these kids’ lives.
I know that community-based learning students don't like it when they are asked to file during their time in the community. However, their learning goals are to improve their Spanish and knowledge of Latino cultures. Filing information on clients with Hispanic names helps them with both. And imagine the impact of mis-filing for the organizations where our students work and and their clients. That's why I was unhappy to learn that many SPAN 232 students did not do well on their exam section asking them to put some Hispanic names in alphabetical order. I can imagine that some students feel that putting names into alphabetical order isn't important. It is! It is especially important in the organizations where they work because they are dealing with clients who may not have "accommodated" to the American system of using only one last name. And it is especially important for clients whose papers are so important for their legal status, medical information and oth...
What I carry to class. by Ann Abbott I'm not afraid to admit that I use a textbook in my Spanish for Business course ( Éxito comercial ). Sure, I wish it was less expensive, but I think that it offers students--and me--a lot of value: he information they have compiled and presented in coherent ways, the vocabulary they have distilled and defined, the audio exercises, video exercises, short case studies, maps, charts and so much more. Although I know the students will probably sell the book at the end of the course, I wish they wouldn't. I wish that they would keep it as a resource. That when they get jobs they will look up information about the countries where their company does business. That they'll reflect on the cultural information and strategies the book presents. But in the meantime, all I know for sure is that I have three 50-minute class sessions with them each week. I try to make those count. Here's what I did today. It's all based on the ...
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