SPAN 111 – Intensive Beginning Language and Culture

SPAN 111 is the course I chose to take to satisfy the Global Citizenship pillar of the Civitae Core Curriculum. The course was taught by Dr. Sergio Diaz-Luna. In SPAN 111, we focused on learning and/or reinforcing the fundamentals of the Spanish language. We started from basic grammatical structures, like subject pronouns and present tense verb conjugation, and worked our way towards more advanced concepts, such as the preterite and imperfect past tenses and reflexive verb structures. Similar to many foreign language courses, SPAN 111 is heavily focused on building off of previous topics. For example, it is much more difficult to use and understand the past tenses if you do not have a strong knowledge of subject pronouns and the basics of verb conjugation. The coursework consisted of in-class activities, online homework via the Cengage MindTap platform, oral exams, and written compositions. During class, there was a strong emphasis on full immersion in Spanish language and culture. All lectures were taught fully in Spanish and in-class activities usually involved using the current topic to carry conversations with classmates. The online homework was used to reinforce the structures that were going to be taught in the following class. The oral exams during the class were especially interesting. For these assignments, we broke out into groups of two and prepared a five-minute conversation to present. However, instead of presenting in front of the entire class, each group signed up for a time outside of class and presented in Dr. Diaz-Luna’s office. I really enjoyed this format because, as someone who did not possess a strong knowledge of Spanish and strong public speaking skills, it was encouraging to only be presenting in front of two other people. In addition, being in such an intimate setting with the professor helped my group to iron out any mistakes we had made during the exam. After each presentation, Dr. Diaz-Luna took five to ten extra minutes to go over our mistakes and give us a chance to correct them. In addition to making us feel more comfortable, the format of the oral exams helped to build a relationship with the professor outside of class.

Because of this class, I was able to gain a new perspective on Spanish culture. Throughout our textbook, there were short sections about different aspects of Hispanic culture. For example, at the end of the chapter where the vocabulary was focused on clothing, there was a short section about guayaberas and ponchos. The main point that this section was trying to get across was that guayaberas and ponchos are typically worn in very different regions (guayaberas typically being used in island countries like Cuba and ponchos are usually worn in mountainous regions). In addition to the textbook, Dr. Diaz-Luna made cultural points during lectures. During our lecture regarding family relationships, Dr. Diaz-Luna taught us about how last names in Spanish are changed. In this class, I also gained a new perspective on foreign language education. In high school, our Spanish department was not very strong. When I took the Spanish placement test, I was intimidated by the level of Spanish that I was, assumably, expected to know. In the three years of Spanish that I took, I had never seen the high-level structures that were on the placement test. In addition, the format of the placement test’s questions was much more advanced than anything I had ever seen before. Most of the Spanish tests that I took in high school were simple, fill-in-the-blank type questions where there was one answer that was usually in a word bank. Never had I seen questions where I was to take in information in Spanish and synthesize it to choose the best answer. However, Dr. Diaz-Luna was very understanding and was always available before or after classes to answer any questions or help with any assignments. It was refreshing to have a Spanish teacher that was there to help the students and did everything in his power to ensure that we all understood the concepts.

Linked above is the first written composition that I wrote for SPAN 111.  The written compositions were used to help Dr. Diaz-Luna asses our knowledge of grammatical concepts in bulk as well as our ability to use the Spanish language to talk about topics that we were passionate about. For example, the first composition was a letter we wrote to a fictional pen pal that lived in a Spanish-speaking country. This was the first paper I had ever written in Spanish in my academic career. In the composition, we were to ask the pen pal questions about their family and their preferences, as well as tell the pen pal about ourselves and our families. These compositions were interesting because we got to use Spanish in a context different from the typical Spanish class. In this composition, I got to write a short paragraph about myself, including what I study, my appearance, and what I do in my free time. By writing about things in my life that I have strong knowledge about and care about, it made it much easier to organize the paper and come up with new ideas to put in the paper. This assignment also helped me refine my writing process because we were given the opportunity to submit a written draft that Dr. Diaz-Luna returned to us with thorough feedback, as well as a first version that he would also return to us so we could refine the final version of our papers. I had rarely ever written drafts for papers that I have written, but through this process, I finally understood why drafts that are peer-reviewed are so important. These drafts are very important to writing at a high-level because if I had been reviewing this on my own, I would have missed a good amount of the mistakes, but by having another person looking at it, there was another set of eyes that saw the mistakes. After these Spanish compositions, I have made it a habit to write drafts for most of the other papers I have written at Longwood.