Course description:
This course is part of your Spanish language learning experience, and offers you the opportunity to interact in a personal way with members of the local Latino community, thereby enriching your understanding of Hispanic cultures and the Spanish language. As a community-based learning experience, the course provides students with career-related experience working collaboratively with community agencies to address community concerns / issues. Taught in Spanish. [Prereq: (Junior or Senior Standing) and (SPAN 201 or SPAN 202 or SPAN 212 with a C- or better) and (Spanish Majors Only)] This course meets MLO 1 and 3 |
In my service learning course we analyzed articles and films that represented the community of focus in this course; Chicano/ Latino communities. The examination of films and articles served the purpose of allowing us to be aware of culture, traditions and language barriers that this community faces among their presence in the United States (MLO 3). There was always time for us to share our experiences of the week as our thirty hours of community service activated. Our professor allowed for all to speak out load and share our outcomes and interesting facts of our day in service, I truly enjoyed doing this. As we shared our recordings, we also made connections to the resources used in class to better understand the community we were serving. For example, viewing the film narrating the process of immigration titled "Alambrista" and children's adaption to immigration narrated in a variety short story telling by different authors The class assignments done in class consisted of unique tasks, but one that marks my growth throughout the process of doing community service was the presentation done at the end of my thirty hours (MLO 1 ). It reaffirms the type of person I am (helpful), and teacher that I want to become. I was able to tutor students of different ages and help with the language barrier issues that many students have as they move into a new country and community (one of the outcomes). Another assignment that marked my reflection and outcome of service learning was my final paper. I explain with detail how my service relates to the articles and films analyzed and a questioner answered in the beginning of the semester; before any service hours we were asked to evaluate how servicing we would be.
Being a Hispanic myself, considered part of low social class, female and with English as my second language, were the reason why I personally related to the issue and concerns of the community. The connection made with them was the concern of having resources that provide educational activities or outreach in Spanish. After I was aware of this concern, it allowed me to fully show understanding to these difficulties and obstacles in the United States as an immigrant, English learner or indigenous, which is why I created at the time a temporary reading bilingual activity. I believe that after finalizing the sections with the students and occasionally have parents present, allowed me to acknowledge the great necessity there is for activities or resources in the community. Yet, an area I wish to develop further due to the lankness of similar activities, such as the reading activity, providing me with basic teaching skills, motivating to accomplish the social responsibility I have in becoming a teacher or member of programs who want to ease students adaptations to a new culture, language and life.
The motivation I have received from breaking through linguistics barriers, comes from my linguistics class Spanish 395. In the course mentioned, linguistics was titled as fundamental for students language prosperity and personal attributes such as, empowerment despite their low fluency in English, participation in community and in classes and inform of any injustice they might be facing because of their legal status or ethnicity. The way I plan to further explore this learning experience of language barriers, consists in doing more research in the diversity I experienced in my location of service, with trilingual students. I would be better prepared if I took insight of articles or experts, that can contribute to my skills in managing inclusive, yet educational activities for those who manage more than two languages.
Being a Hispanic myself, considered part of low social class, female and with English as my second language, were the reason why I personally related to the issue and concerns of the community. The connection made with them was the concern of having resources that provide educational activities or outreach in Spanish. After I was aware of this concern, it allowed me to fully show understanding to these difficulties and obstacles in the United States as an immigrant, English learner or indigenous, which is why I created at the time a temporary reading bilingual activity. I believe that after finalizing the sections with the students and occasionally have parents present, allowed me to acknowledge the great necessity there is for activities or resources in the community. Yet, an area I wish to develop further due to the lankness of similar activities, such as the reading activity, providing me with basic teaching skills, motivating to accomplish the social responsibility I have in becoming a teacher or member of programs who want to ease students adaptations to a new culture, language and life.
The motivation I have received from breaking through linguistics barriers, comes from my linguistics class Spanish 395. In the course mentioned, linguistics was titled as fundamental for students language prosperity and personal attributes such as, empowerment despite their low fluency in English, participation in community and in classes and inform of any injustice they might be facing because of their legal status or ethnicity. The way I plan to further explore this learning experience of language barriers, consists in doing more research in the diversity I experienced in my location of service, with trilingual students. I would be better prepared if I took insight of articles or experts, that can contribute to my skills in managing inclusive, yet educational activities for those who manage more than two languages.
Here is the document used for roll attendance, which helped on identifying the students grade level and age.(This was very useful when selecting the books to read and level of translation activities)