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The Old Guitarrist, by Pablo Picasso |
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The Old Guitarrist, by Pablo Picasso |
Read about my related course Meet the Catalans
Teaching Statement
I enjoy teaching, and while at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Smith College I have had the opportunity to teach a variety of courses as a lecturer, both with full responsibility and as part of a four to five person team teaching an intensive language course. In this statement I will focus on my experience teaching in the Spanish Department at Smith. A statement about teaching Linguistics is available here.
I consider the teaching of young women and men a great privilege and have found it to be an endeavor that is as challenging as it is ultimately rewarding. I see my classes to be immersed in what I think is the main goal of a University education: to facilitate the environment for the students to grow in their skills to access and process information and life experiences (their own and those of others) with a critical intellect and a constructive spirit, in a crucial time of discovering of their personal and social identity. By providing a space of reflection and expression of one’s reality from the unusual perspective and demands of a foreign language, I hope that my classes ignite questions that will contribute to such growth.
I believe that learning is only possible if it is internally motivated, and thus I see my main role when teaching as being the provider of an interesting environment for the student to feel excited about learning. I conduct my classes with a student-centered approach, enabling students to communicate in a variety of real-life tasks, such as debates, role plays, letter writing, etc. I always try to bring the students' world into the classroom. This means not only talking about the “self”, but also about the events that might be current in our environment. I often ignite the discussion by writing on the board a controversial claim, and allowing the students to react using their words to express their opinions and to build argumentations.
At the same time, I understand one of the most important advantages of learning a foreign language to be gaining access to new worldviews that both broaden one's understanding of the difference in others and enlighten the understanding of one’s own reality. Therefore, I include information and illustrations of the Hispanic world in my classes, adapting to the level of the students. This means bringing original video recordings of ads or debates broadcast around the world’s televisions, explanations of national and cultural holidays or commemorative events, and newspaper opinion articles. For example, after the 2004 elections my advanced class read a bunch of articles commenting on the results, taken from electronic editions of newspapers from Europe and Latin America.
I have found that being a linguist helps me immensely in my teaching Spanish as a foreign language. The students often comment on their appreciating the clarity of my grammatical explanations. I think I bring into the classroom an extra level of language learning, by inviting the students to marvel at the fascinating phenomenon language is, and by inviting them to take advantage of their privileged position in observing a language “from outside” and using their observations to learn about their own language. Whenever possible, I offer a side comment on such metalinguistic observations.
On the other hand, I also have the rule of undertaking the learning of a completely unfamiliar language at least every three or four years, by taking a language class at the university I am teaching in. Apart from the pleasure I derive, with this action I intend to remind myself of how it feels to approach a new language from complete ignorance, and thus I gain empathy towards my students. In the process I also pick on new tricks and resources used by my colleagues from different departments.
I use Spanish in my classes from day one. While I still use English when explaining a grammatical point, I only do it after having explained it in Spanish first, provided that the students have had access to the English explanations in the book. I always try to repeat the explanation in Spanish, to allow the students to use their gained knowledge to complete their understanding of the subject. In debates and such, English is completely banned. That said, I try to be sensitive to the different levels of understanding of the individuals in the group, so as to avoid frustration and withdrawal. I normally bring endless patience with me to class, which implies no limit on the number of repetitions of a question or explanation and allowing enough time for the student to process my question and her/his answer, or compose her/his opinion.
I use the course materials as an aid, but the book is never the center of my lectures. I use as many audiovisual aids as possible, but I am very cautious to always check that the students continue to be at the center of the class. I normally do not end a class without every single one of my students having used their Spanish. That said, I use videos, audio materials (songs and other recordings), transparencies, pictures, magazines, and dramatizations throughout the course.
A very important part of my courses is the oral presentations. Students at the lower levels normally dramatize a scene in groups or two or three, while students at the intermediate levels are given a reading and should prepare a class presentation on its topic. These presentations are closely guided by me, and should include researched information as well as activities to engage the class. Students typically prepare a PowerPoint presentation and often complement it with video or audio materials, and report a profound enjoyment of the group experience.
Finally, I try to be always available to my students in many different ways. Those include holding regular and extended office hours, replying email promptly, bringing extra materials if the interest for a topic is more than expected, adapting the pace of the class to the particular difficulties of the group as detected in written assignments, participating regularly in the Spanish table (a weekly lunch in one of the student’s cafeteria where only Spanish is spoken), and sharing from my own life and experience as I respectfully ask my students to do.
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