Student Reflection

by Flora Ramirez
Hello everyone, my name is Flora Ramirez and I am a senior in Urban and Regional Planning.  I am extremely excited about having the opportunity to complete my James Scholar Project for SPAN-232.  Within the realm of Urban Planning my interests lie in urban design and community planning in ethnic neighborhoods.  While I have developed my first interest within my major’s curriculum it has been more of a struggle to explore my second interest.  That said, when I ran across this class I jumped at the opportunity to work in the community!

My experience with Spanish within the academic arena is extremely limited.  However, Spanish is my native language and so it has always informally been a part of my life.  Having made the transition from learning in Spanish to learning in English in 4th grade, my Spanish has experience limited growth since then. 
This said I hope that my experience with in the community will help my Spanish speaking skills grow. My goal is to have the ability to hold a casual conversation with community members effectively.  By effectively I mean that I would like to be personable so that community members may feel that they can confide in me.  In the long run I strongly feel that my experiences within the community will also help me gain a heightened sense of awareness for what members of ethnic communities’ experience.  The hopes are that this understanding will then help to better inform my approach to both urban design and community planning.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vocabulary for Parent-Teacher Conferences

Image
I'm very happy that so many students responded to our community partner's need for help. Our students' language skills will help Central High School's Latino parents better communicate with the teachers during the parent-teacher conferences next week. Central's secretary will contact the students directly to schedule times with them. Here is some vocabulary help for students. Materias. School subjects are "materias" NOT "sujetos." You should remember subjects from your intro Spanish courses, but here are some reminders: historia, matemáticas, inglés, física, química, biología, educación física, etc. General vocabulary. Notas = grades; aprobar = to pass; suspender = to fail; conducta, comportamiento = behavior. Topics. Ms. Citraro offers the following advice: "The topics and vocabulary that would come up are about the subjects at school. For example: no ha entregado las tareas tiene que tomar el examen otra vez habla mucho en clase falta muc
Read more

How to Correctly File Hispanic Names

Image
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
Read more

Interview with Jessica Horn of ACCIÓN Chicago

Image
By Carolyn Kloecker , Span 232 student This past week I completed an assignment for my Business Communications class (SPCM 211) which was to interview someone in a field that I am interested in working for in the future. I asked her many questions about the organization, and lots of information can be found on their website www.accionchicago.org . This organization is a Community Partner with Spanish & Illinois, and has an extensive connection with the Spanish-speaking community in the Chicagoland area. Here are a few of the questions and answers from Jessica: Is ACCIÓN a fairly new organization? How did it begin? ACCIÓN Chicago started in 1994, but the parent organization, ACCIÓN was started in 1961. It is the largest micro-lending organization, and it began in Venezuela, and took root in the U.S. in 1991. How do loan officers communicate with clients? Mostly by phone, as people call in to the office to get a loan for their small business. The website is also a main form o
Read more