Spanish & Illinois

When I have some free time at the Refugee Center, I read the paper. There are two papers that report about the Hispanic community in Champaign-Urbana and both of them are free. I can accomplish the goals of this course in many ways by reading “El Informador” and “La Prensa”. For example, these papers use the vocabulary of native speakers, rather than the vocabulary of text books. By learning the more commonly used vocabulary, I am better able to communicate with Spanish speakers. Moreover, the newspapers give me more insight into the local Hispanic culture. There are always articles about upcoming events within the community and individuals who have helped the community. Finally, I am able to make connections by reading the newspapers because I learn about new things. For example, last week’s paper had an article about nutrition and it taught me many facts about proteins and carbohydrates. All in all, I would suggest that other Spanish students read these papers. They contain national ...

I’m sure you all got the e-mail from Ann Abbott earlier this week saying that Ms. Citraro needs a tutor to come into the biology class at Central. It would be amazing if any one could please help out; the ESL students are really struggling in this class. I would help out if I could but I have class every day at that time. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know any biology at all. I haven’t had a biology class in years but I can still help the students with their homework assignments. Most of the homework is based on reading comprehension but because there are so many specific scientific words, the students have trouble understanding the work. It would be extremely helpful if someone could take the time to go over the readings with the students, any little bit would help. Even if you couldn’t come in every single day I think the students would still benefit from it. Please respond to the e-mail if you are available to help. As tutors in the ESL class we can help with homework projects but ...

For this post, I would like to talk about my experiences translating at the parent teacher conferences in more detail because I know many students were nervous about it. I wasn’t too nervous because over the summer I worked as a Spanish-English interpreter at a Target in my home town. The experience helped me out with the parent-teacher conferences as far as practice goes, but as for the vocabulary I used it was completely different. At the beginning, I used very basic conversational questions because the father of the student seemed a bit nervous and was very quiet. So when we started walking down the hall I started making small talk and asking him where he was from to make him more comfortable. This was also a good way for him to get used to my accent and my speech patterns. The first class we went to was biology and the student I was helping was having quite a bit of problems in this class, so I had to explain to his father what had happened. I used phrases like “No ha ent...

Several of my past students have taken advantage of this opportunity and enjoyed it immensely. Please read: "The Education Office of the Embassy of Spain is pleased to announce that the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science will be sponsoring a North American Language and Culture Assistant Program for elementary and secondary schools in Spain. This program enables US and Canadian citizens to work as English Language Assistants in Spain for the school year 2008-2009. The assistants will work in close connection with experienced Spanish teachers and are meant to collaborate mostly in teaching English oral skills. "We would greatly appreciate it if you could inform your students of this opportunity. "Candidates can find information and requirements on the following website: http://www.mec.es/exterior/usa/en/programs/us_assistants/default.shtml "Applications for the 1300 grants offered should be completed and submitted online by April 15th, 2008. "Should candi...

Overall, your diarios digitales are really, really good; I enjoy listening to your analyses. I'm also pleased to see that there were far fewer technical issues. Remember to go to this site http://www.sip.uiuc.edu/people/fcampill/Span232FAQ/ if you have problems. Common mistakes that will lower a student's grade: Video is not 5 minutes long. Student reads. Student does not look into the camera while speaking. The video here contains additional information. Ann

Last night I went over to help out with the parent-teacher conferences at Central High School. There were actually quite a few students that showed up. I was really impressed that so many students wanted to help out! Thanks everyone! I helped as a translator for one family, I knew the student because I had tutored him before. At first his dad seemed a bit shy, but he opened up more and more as we visited all of the teachers and he was very grateful that the school had offered the invitation for him to come in to class because he was able to get suggestions on how to help his son be successful in class. The parents really want their children to get a good education and learn English so they can grow up to do what ever career they want to. The conferences seemed to encourage both the parents and the students to let them know that they are doing the right thing and going in the right direction to a better future. Thanks again to every one who came out!

I continue to learn more about the community of Champaign-Urbana at the Refugee Center. I did not know, for instance, that CU also has a significant number of Turkish and Persian immigrants. This week we had a couple of people call who were looking for interpreters in Turkish and Farsi. The workers at the Refugee Center did not know of anybody who spoke either language fluently, but they did some research and eventually found two translators. Additionally, I did not know that some of the grade schools in Champaign have bilingual education programs. I was talking to some of the parents at the Refugee Center and apparently they have kids who are taught in both Spanish and English on a regular basis. This concept really impresses me for a couple of reasons. First of all, I admire the kids who take part in bilingual education programs because it must be extremely difficult. Learning fractions for me was hard enough as it is, and I can only imagine how hard it must be to learn math and scie...

Once again, Valeri Werpetinski has outdone herself. She is offering a workshop that I would never have thought of, yet makes so much sense: Using the Government Documents Library to Enhance Service-Learning Courses. I'm excited to attend and learn new ideas for classroom activities using government documents. Of course, when we're dealing with Latino communities, government documents don't always give the full story, but I'm sure there is a lot of information that we can give students to help them see the issues within the Latino community through a broader perspective. I do an activity with my students about housing, and I use census data about Illinois counties , including my home county-- Clay County --a rural, agricultural county with 1% Hispanic population (according to the statistics). It's a good point of contrast for students to compare to Cook County and Champaign County. There is a lot of information about housing in this list of statistics, and one of the...

For the past two weeks, one of my main jobs at the Refugee Center has been to sell raffle tickets. Each ticket costs $2 and the proceeds of the raffle support ECIRMAC by paying for phone lines and other utilities. I have been absolutely astounded by the number of people willing to partake in the raffle. We have probably sold over $400 worth of tickets already. Most people buy about $20 worth of tickets, even though the prizes (a cordless iron and toaster oven) probably only cost $100 total. I have not been rejected by a single person when trying to sell them raffle tickets. This whole process has shown me how much the community cares about the Refugee Center. It appears that the citizens of Champaign-Urbana really appreciate the services that ECIRMAC provides, and that makes me happy. The last fund-raising project was an enormous success as well- about two weeks ago, ECIRMAC held a dinner with live music and entertainment. According to the newspaper, over 300 people attended the event ...

A friend of mine from the Urbana school district just wrote to me with this request: "I was wondering if you would happen to know someone who would be interested in a job at the Urbana school district. Special Ed is looking for a person willing to work 2-3 hours a week, during the school day, tutoring someone in Spanish, high school level Spanish III. They have to have at least 60 hours of college credit. They prefer someone who is a certified teacher, but need someone soon. The person who had been tutoring has unexpectedly left. Maybe you know of someone who might become a teacher and would like some practice? "They pay $25.00 an hour. The person would have to go to Circle Academy to do the tutoring. This is an alternative placement school for students who were having trouble in the regular school setting. I think that the particular hours of the day are somewhat negotiable, but I am not sure about that. If you know of someone, can you please ask them to contact Ria ...

I think things have been going very well so far at Central High School . The students seem to look forward to working with the tutors and they definitely appreciate the help. I have noticed though that many of the students want you to simply give them the answers so they can copy them down. It might give them a good grade on their homework, but it does not help them when it comes to taking tests because the students will not know how to answer the questions. It’s like the Chinese proverb says, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” So I have some suggestions for the tutors. Encourage the student to try to answer the questions themselves. If they still do not understand, try to give them hints or tell them where they can look up the answer in their text books. If you see students copying off of each other’s homework, offer to help the students instead of walking away and letting them copy. Many of the ESL students are frust...

Will took my course on "Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities" the very first semester it was offered (when Darcy Lear and I co-taught it). He worked at the Refugee Center, and his coursework showed how much he learned while there. He spent the following year in our department's Barcelona program--becoming more fluent in Spanish and picking up Catalan. After graduating, Will got a job as a chemist--exactly what he had trained for in his other major. But not long afterward he wrote to me to explain that he felt pulled to do something different with his life. He explained that he was applying to Teach for America and the Fulbright program to teach in Andorra. I received a letter from him this week informing me that he was accepted by Teach for America to teach high-school chemistry in Los Angeles. But if all goes well, he might delay that for one year so that he can go to Andorra (the Fulbright's final decision won't be known for anot...

It is not difficult to find transportation to the Refugee Center. I have a car on campus, and therefore I drive to the center whenever I am scheduled to volunteer. It only takes about five minutes for me to drive from my apartment to the Unitarian church where ECIRMAC is located. The church also has a large parking lot, so I never have to worry about parking on the street or putting money into a meter. If a student does not have a car, he or she could also take the bus. ECIRMAC is located on Green Street in Urbana, and thus there are always buses traveling past the Refugee Center. It is even possible to walk or bike to ECIRMAC from the quad. ECIRMAC is about four blocks east of Lincoln Avenue and some students say that they can walk there in about fifteen to twenty minutes.

The last few weeks I have dealt with many of issues concerning Spanish community service learning issues--some exciting, others challenging. 1. Darcy Lear and I co-authored an article that will appear in the Spring 2008 issue of Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning . This one is pure excitement! In the article we assert that the research on community service learning does not problematize language issues, even when describing community service learning work that takes place with non-English language communities or low-English proficiency speakers. Our thesis is that Spanish community service learning allows students to reach the 5 C's in ways that classroom-bound courses cannot. We present a qualitative analysis of one student's 5 C's achievement in our Spanish & Entrepreneurship course. We are so happy to be published in this prestigious journal. 2. Darcy attended and presented at the North Carolina Campus Compact Service-Learning Conference this wee...