The purpose of this
blog is to display the assignments that the students of Spanish 0001 (basic
level) have prepared during the course of
the Spring 2014 semester.
It should be noted
that the great majority of these students have never studied the Spanish
language before, and even those who have taken the language in high school often
do not remember much of what they learned. I am thus pleasantly surprised that
these students have done so well this semester and that they have been able to
achieve such a high level of integration of essential vocabulary and
grammatical structures.
This blog is also a
response to my own concerns, since I have found in this group of young people
many impressive reactions to a variety of stimuli. That is to say that although
they have been doing the mandatory exercises from the book as well as the
assignments from “My Spanish Lab,” the students have also been able to work
with other sources perhaps closer to them: cinema, music, and art. But there is
a difference here: all of these elements appear in a fresh, Latin American
context.
The students wrote brief compositions in which they
gave their opinions about the paintings of such artists as Rember Yahuarcani
and Brus Rubio. Both of these artists are Peruvian and belong to a fresh,
innovative movement of Amazonian painting. Students also saw the film “La teta
asustada”, directed by Claudia Llosa; and finally, we were able to put together
an individualized exercise: five students chose to work with photos, two of
them by Martín Chambi, a famous photographer from Cuzco, and one taken from the
book The Imaginary Book and Pictures of
the Rubber Boom: The Events of Putumayo, 2009.
The
rest of the students worked with songs. But for this group the exercise had a
difference. Each student was assigned a different song (all of the lyrics were
in both Spanish and English) and thus each student wrote a composition on a
different topic and band, all of them Latin American except for one song that
was Spanish, “Entre Dos Aguas,” by Paco de Lucía, which has no lyrics. The main
objective with all of these compositions has not been for the students to learn
theories or concepts, but for them to get to know a more ineractive, dynamic
and personalized way of learning a language. In other words, they should feel
involved and their interest should increase. Despite the fact that the
assignment was mainly written, we were able to discuss in class some relevant
points about their compositions. Students shared their opinions about the film
“La teta asustada”; the assignment was not confined to written work but
included discussion as well. In order to guide this discussion, I brought up
the idea of how to go about representing the people of the Andes and the city
of Lima (the capital) in the film. The debate was quite interesting and I think
that we were able to discuss several points that could not have been as
thoroughly treated in written form. In other
words, this ended up being one of the most complete exercises we did.
Likewise,
I think it important to stress that these assignments do not seek to develop
ideas of a theoretical nature, but rather aim to provide an opportunity for
students to practice the language in such a way that they feel comfortable with
it and are able to apply what they have learned in class.
I
invite you to peruse these brief texts in
which you will see some surprising opinions. I think it is worthwhile to read
this initial approach to a new language, to new cultures and, perhaps, to a new
side of the students themselves that was heretofore unknown to even them.
So welcome to our Spanish 1 course, and please make yourselves at home.
Andrea Cabel.
P.S.,
All of the assignments published in this blog were done so with the permission
of their respective authors.
