Level Up Your Spanish: Take Community Service Learning Courses

Take Spanish community service learning classes.
by Ann Abbott

 This week I am going to talk to a group of students from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois. I need to make a quick pitch for ways that freshmen can get involved in the Spanish program.

One of the most important things on the list, in my opinion, is taking a Spanish community service learning class. Not only will you learn about things that few other Spanish classes teach, you'll also improve your Spanish by speaking with native speakers and gain valuable experience as a bilingual pre-professional.

So here's a list of the courses I teach that incorporate experiential learning. More might appear in the future, or more people might teach them, so be sure to ask the Spanish advisor for an updated list of courses.

SPAN 142: Spanish for the Professions*

This semester I am teaching two sections of the course, and students will participate in one community event, using their Spanish. It's pretty low-stakes and designed to be mostly an introduction to the concept of Spanish CSL and our local Latino community.
*Only the sections I teach and have my name by them in the time table include CSL.

SPAN 202: Business Spanish

I teach this course in the fall. In addition to the regular content about busines sSpanish, I teach students about bilingual social media marketing. To put it into practice, I divide students into teams, and each team does the Facebook marketing for a local client.

SPAN 232: Spanish in the Community

In this class you learn about immigration and how to work in linguistically and culturally appropriate ways in a variety of professional contexts (education, social services, etc.). Students also work two hours a week in an organization (school, office, club etc.) that serves the local Latino community.

SPAN 332: Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities

This course has the same structure as SPAN 232 (working two hours a week with a local organization, going to class two hours a week), but the content of the class is about social entrepreneurship. I especially emphasize how nonprofit programming should be both linguistically and culturally appropriate. You'll learn a lot of business concepts that can (and should) be applied to nonprofit settings.

********************

All in all, these courses are wonderful opportunities to learn AND serve, to study AND do. I should also note that all my classes are very interactive and communicative, so even when you are in class, you are improving your Spanish all the time.

Join us! These are valuable courses.

Here's the whole presenation:


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