Spanish & Illinois

by Allison Kutzki Through working with the community, I have been able to extend my use of Spanish to something outside of the classroom, and upon reflection of my experiences thus far, I have been able to solidify my reasons for being a Spanish major. This thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to return to my high school and I spent a few hours in one of my old Spanish teachers’ classroom. He asked me to speak with his honors students about my experiences at the University of Illinois with Spanish and why high school students should continue to take Spanish in college. The night before I went, I was laying in my bed and I was forced to articulate to myself what I would have like to have known if I were a high school senior deciding what classes I wanted to take my first semester in college. Although I was fortunate enough to attend a rather affluent high school, one thing that it lacks is the diversity that actually exists outside of the school. I think that many students are le...

by Dana Lange As we are nearing the end of the semester, I’ve been reflecting a lot about what I have gained this semester from the class and what I may have shared with the students and teachers. For me personally, helping with the religion class has allowed me to use Spanish for an additional two hours a week, outside of the classroom, in a real-life setting, building upon all of the Spanish that I learned and used while I spent the first part of this year in Spain. Though I don’t speak Spanish as much as I did in Spain, the class, for me, has been a comfortable setting for me to continue to use it. Furthermore, I’ve gotten to know many of the adults and kids from the Latino Ministry at St. John’s. For the students, I hope that they have grown to feel more comfortable with me, too. It seems like they have- last week Maestra Patty wasn’t able to make it to class due to the snow so we had an substitute teacher, but I think it was good that I was there to be a familiar, friendly face ...

by Ann Abbott I'll be frank: I was very disappointed in the "Next Steps Letter" and "Implementation Grid" regarding Public Engagement in the "Stewarding Excellence @Illinois" process . While I don't disagree with anything that is written in the reports, I definitely take issue with what was not  included in the report.  Absolutely nothing was said about public engagement as it relates to our university's teaching and research missions.  That is very disappointing. Those of us who do public engagement know that it has a very important role in teaching--through academic service learning and other venues--and research.  However, I have found that many people are stumped when I mention that an entire research agenda can be (and is!) tied to academic service learning.  It seems that our approach to Stewarding Excellence @Illinois suffers from the same lack of information and imagination. The University of Illinois needs--at the highest leve...

by Dana Lange To gain a few more extra hours, I offered to help at Urbana Middle School over Halloween weekend while the Mexican consulate came to help many of the Mexican people living in the area with visas, passports, and other supportive aspects. Upon arriving, I really didn’t know what to expect while there, but I was very glad that I helped out and I would be more than willing to volunteer again! I knew that I had to help both Friday night and most of the day that Saturday in order to make up for some hours, so I was a little nervous and not really sure how I would be spending all of that time. But when I got there, they actually needed help with the children’s activities, which was something I knew I could do. All night Friday and all day Saturday, I entertained the kids with coloring, games, and different physical activities- all while speaking Spanish. Most of the kids came and left as their parents finished up with what they needed to get done, but a few of the kids, who...

by Allison Kutzki No puedo creer que casi hayamos llegado al término del semestre. El tiempo pasa tanto rápido. Sin embargo, creo que he aprendido mucha información muy útil sobre el español y también la cultura que puedo aplicar a otros aspectos de mi vida. He estado tomando español por nueve años y paso a paso me doy cuenta de que hay tantas cosas de que se compone la lengua. Existen tantas historias ricas juntas con la cultura y las tradiciones. El contenido de este curso, en combinación con el trabajo que he hecho afuera del aula, me ha permitido de realizar esas cosas importantes. Mi carrera es la educación de español, entonces he tomado muchas clases en ambas materias. Tomo otras clases de cultura, pero no eran activos. Los cursos están enseñados por ver las películas, leer las historias y los artículos de países hispanohablantes. Mientras que estudiar así es útil para adquirir una base de información, es difícil ponerte en el lugar de las personas de quienes estudias. Este curs...

by Allison Kutzki Since wanting to be a teacher, I have always worked with high school students. Therefore, working at Leal has been a rather novice and insightful experience for me. Not only has it been a place for me to practice my language skills, but I have also learned a lot about how to deal with children in an educational setting. There is so much more that goes into instructing first graders than simply the content. While the main goal teachers have is to provoke learning, other smaller goals must be accomplished before the larger can be achieved. There is a psychology behind every direction and activity which helps shape not only the students understanding of classroom material but their behavior. Everything for these students must be done in an orderly, clearly directional fashion. Before going out to recess, there is a routine. Students must clean up their areas, go to the restroom and then get a drink of water. Students then line up at the door and those in charge of carry...

by Katie Dudek A December to Remember I cannot believe it is already December.   At the risk of sounding cliché, it seems like it was just yesterday that I walked into Ms. Bucio’s classroom for the first time.   It is very interesting to think about how my Spanish has improved since then, how much more confident I am in her classroom, and how much my relationship has changed with each her students.   All of this was evident when I went to Booker T. Washington to volunteer this past Monday. I arrived at the school at 12:45 PM like I normally do, put my things in the classroom, and walked down the hallway to where Ms. Bucio’s class lines up after lunch to go to the bathroom.   The moment I saw them scattered on both sides of the hallway, I knew something was going on.   Usually they are very obedient, lined up in a straight line against the wall, but that was not the case.   Why?   There was a substitute teacher.   Though I have been a univers...

by Charlotte Piwowar Final thoughts Now that the semester has come to a close, I figure it would be appropriate to share some general overall thoughts about my time at Champaign Central in the ESL tutoring classroom this semester.   Although I’ve faced some challenges or situations many times, each day has had a different dynamic from the last.   So then, what have I loved?   What has been especially challenging?   Especially rewarding? I’ll start with the tough stuff.   Volunteering has been, for the most part, a fun and rewarding experience, but that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been bumps in the road.   Tutoring can be challenging enough with students for whom English is their native language; needless to say, doing so with students who have limited English skills or for me to explain things in my second language can be tricky.   I’ve mentioned the students from the Congo before—they usually come down for help with U.S. history, which generall...

by Ann Abbott The latest issue of the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning arrived in my mailbox today. Although there are no articles specifically addressing foreign language service learning, the articles are interesting and point toward some bigger-picture issues. Seider, Scott C., Susan C. Gillmor and Samantha A. Rabinowicz. "Complicating Students' Conception of the American Dream through Community Service Learning." A lot of very good CSL work takes place in religious colleges that emphasize social justice.  This article focuses on a "CSL program sponsored by the philosophy and theology departments at Ignatius University," and shows that, "students demonstrated significant declines in their belief in the American Dream in comparison to a randomly assigned control group. Qualitative interviews revealed that the program exerted this influence, in part, by providing participants with diverse opportunities to think critically about the avail...

by Charlotte Piwowar Sharing with Classmates Time is quickly slipping away as we get towards the end of the semester, and I can’t help but feel like it’s all just begun—especially with my work in the community!  I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my time at Champaign Central, and since I’m there at the same time every week, I’ve gotten to know more and more about the students that come in regularly.  Something that I’ve really enjoyed, though, is how the Spanish in the Community class is winding down.  We’ve been able to reflect and share more about our experiences with our classmates, talking about how our feelings have grown or changed (both with respect to our Spanish skills and to the people we work with), what has surprised us or what we’ve learned of the communities we work in, and what sorts of challenges we’ve confronted. Two other people in my class also volunteer in the same classroom that I do, and so it has been especially interesting to talk with them about ...

by Katie Dudek The Harry Potter Hype The moment that all Harry Potter fans have been waiting for has finally arrived.  The much-anticipated part one of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , is now playing in theaters across the country.  As of 10 AM Monday, November 15th, the Savoy 16 had sold out their eight theaters for the midnight showing on Thursday.  J.K. Rowling’s books about “the boy who lived” are books that my generation has grown up reading.  I still remember when I received my first set of Harry Potter books.  It was Christmas morning when I was in fifth grade.  I picked up a box that I thought was going to be filled with clothing, however my arms dropped with the unexpected weight of the gift.  Quickly, I tore off the wrapping paper and lifted the lid of the box to find the first three books of the Harry Potter series.  I was elated.  From that moment on, I have been a devoted Harry Potter fan.  I have rea...

by Charlotte Piwowar More Spanish in the Community Volunteering in the Learning Zone at Champaign Central High School has been a blast so far, but it’s not the only time I’ve been using Spanish.  I never quite realized how big the Latino community is in Champaign-Urbana, and therefore the resulting need for Spanish speakers.  The Spanish in the Community class has really opened up my eyes to this, and given me some additional opportunities to keep practicing Spanish. A few weeks ago I went to the parent-teacher conferences at Champaign Central to serve as a translator.  I was matched with a woman who had three students at the high school, and so stayed with her the entire night, going to different teachers for 15-minute meetings to discuss how her children were doing.  It proved to be a very enjoyable experience!  Not only did we talk during the conferences, but when there was some down time while waiting for a few teachers we chatted about our families, her e...

by Ann Abbott My business Spanish students are working on a marketing survey related to University of Illinois students and their habits (if any) of going out to bars and restaurants in downtown Champaign. We're at the very beginning stages, and we'll document our results on our project wiki as we go . On the wiki, you can see the set of questions, and students have to get answers from five University of Illinois students. The results will be shared with owners of bars and restaurants in downtown Champaign. Today we compiled the data from the 68 surveys that had been turned in so far.  In the end, we should have completed 130 surveys. But before we began compiling the data, I put students in pairs and asked them to use their first impressions and their intuitions and write down the following:  What do you think are going to be the three most important results that come out of this marketing research?  When we're done with the project, I want them to look back and...

by Ann Abbott I was excited to get my copy of the new book, " Quick Hits for Service-Learning: Successful Strategies by Award-winning Teachers " (U of Indiana Press), in my mailbox yesterday. My piece (written with Darcy Lear) is entitled "Matching student presentations to the nature of service-learning work." In it, we describe how students can do poster presentations instead of the more familiar oral presentations.  The intro states: "Each semester, our Spanish service-learning students engage in meaningful community-based projects, yet the typical end-of-the-semester oral presentation is the opposite: boring and delivered to a passive audience. Without extensive training, most PowerPoint presentations simply recreate the pitfalls of oral presentations with students reading each slide's text.  Instead, we have found that a poster session modeled on the professional conference format allows students to present their projects in succinct yet eye-catc...

by Dana Lange The last weekend of October, in order to make up for some extra volunteering hours, I helped out in the community in a couple of different ways. One of my favorite activities was Thursday night, when I attended parent-teacher conferences at Central High School to translate for Spanish-speaking parents. Thursday night I was a little nervous- not necessarily in my speaking and understanding abilities, but I had never been to the high school and I was already a few minutes late! As soon as I got to Central, though, I felt much better. Everyone was very helpful in directing me where to go and I met several other U of I students who were volunteering as well. About half an hour into the evening, I met Marsela [not her real name], the woman who I helped for the rest of the night. We visited several classes and talked to several teachers- she has three children who are at Central! At first things were a little awkward, though I knew she appreciated my help. But later on M...

by Allison Kutzki “The key to growth is challenging comfort”             I have always been told that in any aspect of your life, in order to make progress and change, you must constantly be putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. That is ultimately when you are forced to draw on skills you may not have known that you had, and the reflection of such challenges is what helps you grow. Through my Spanish 232, Spanish in the community class I was given the chance to do just this as I was offered the opportunity to translate at parent teacher conferences at Central High School. Although I have worked with native speakers in schools, I had never been put in the position where I actually had to translate concepts and ideas between people from one language to another. What intimidated me even more was the fact that I did not know anyone that I was going to be working with. Essentially, I had to interpret details about a student’s ac...

by Ann Abbott After the webinar presentation I gave last week (" Achieving Transcultural Competence through Community Service Learning "), I received several questions about assessment. My initial reaction was, and remains, that structured student reflection should be the centerpiece of that assessment.  After all, it's already a part of any well-designed CSL course, and our prompts can ask students to analyze any number of elements of transcultural competency: Recognize and describe moments of cultural difference. Notice and describe the emotions that often accompany transcultural (mis)encounters. Discuss the results of a particular experience when the student used cultural information in the community that he/she had learned about in the classroom, in other coursework or from other sources. Present a possible worst-case scenario following an instance of transcultural incompetence in the community partner organization. Etc. Then the  latest issue of " T...

by Dana Lange For the past month now, I’ve been helping the catechism classes at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center, volunteering as a kind of “teacher’s assistant” during classes that prepare the Spanish-speaking kids of the community to receive their First Communion, a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. I decided to use this opportunity as my “trabajo en la comunidad” for a few reasons. I am Catholic and my faith is very important to me- I think that’s pretty important for a religious education teacher! I also live at the Newman Center so I only have to walk downstairs every Saturday morning to get to work. Plus, my freshman year of college, I also worked with the catechism classes, doing pretty much the same thing except with a different teacher. I enjoyed it very much and I knew what I could expect for class this year! So far the semester has been going well- the only thing is that I didn’t get started until later in the semester and I also had to miss two weekends of volunt...

by Ann Abbott I had a few more follow-up questions from Friday's webinar that I answered on the e-mail.  I thought I would share the questions and answers here.  You know how it is: if one person asks the questions that means that at least ten others had the same questions but just didn't ask it. Question:  My first concern is what does trans-cultural competence mean?  Answer: Definitions and terms vary.  Cultural competency really comes from the health professions, especially nursing and social work, where they emphasize that in order to provide effective care, a person needs to know about other cultures' beliefs in order to provide care that works.  For example, if you provide nutritional counseling to a person from another culture that has been diagnosed with diabetes and give them a diet plan that only includes typical US dishes, that does not show cultural competency and it will probably not be effective.  The business world has their ...

by Ann Abbott This semester I have been thinking, presenting and writing about the connections between transcultural competency and community service learning (CSL).   I contributed a chapter to a forthcoming edited volume entitled Building Infrastructures for Latino Mental Health (Springer), edited by Lissette Piedra and Lydia Buki. That chapter's goal is to help human service providers build a partnership with a Spanish community service learning program, and I discuss the role of transcultural competency in that partnership.   On Friday, I presented in a webinar organized by Pearson ( Speaking About World Languages ), and I was able to present my thoughts to a different audience--language instructors.  Here is the description of the talk (which I'll also be presenting at  ACTFL ):  ACHIEVING TRANSCULTURAL COMPETENCE THROUGH COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING   Foreign language community service learning (CSL) addresses ACTFL's "Communities" goal ...

by Ann Abbott I received this information from Ms. Jessica Horn .  If you have any questions, please contact her or the hiring organization directly. "I wanted to pass on a couple Chicago job and internship opportunities in microfinance.  Please feel free to have any students/graduate s interested get in contact with me if they have any questions. JOBS 1.  North Side Community Federal Credit Union: Small Business Loan Officer 2.  ACCION Chicago: Loan Officer INTERNSHIP ACCION Chicago (un-paid; described below) Lending Intern - Fall Internship ACCION Chicago is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing loans to self-employed individuals who have limited or no access to traditional business credit. Part of the nation’s largest microlending network, ACCION has provided over 2,000 loans totaling $15 million to individuals and small businesses throughout the Chicagoland area since its inception in 1994. Through our lending and other serv...