Initially, the exercise had nothing to do with the end of the world, but as summer approached in my second-semester Spanish class during my first year teaching, something unexpected happened. I circulated around the room, listening as my students serenely debated the relative advantages of city life to life in the country in one of many controlled exercises that we develop to lead students to use language “authentically,” as a means to their own meaningful ends. And then I heard them. Their Spanish may have been less than perfect, but there they were: the “fearless” student and her shy, reserved partner, availing themselves of all the vocabulary at their disposal, masterfully deploying tenses they could not have produced in a more controlled environment, hotly debating whether they would prefer to spend the end of the world in the city or the countryside. I discarded the carefully constructed lesson plans meant to lead students over the hurdle this pair had so casually surmounted in one improvisational flourish. The best I could do was step back as the entire class got caught up in the fervor of the impromptu debate, and was transformed.
This little lesson had a profound impact on my teaching philosophy. As a foreign language instructor, it has been tempting to believe that my students will approach the language via the same path I chose —hard work, rote memorization, and fortuitous exposure to a large, friendly, Spanish-speaking population— and to see my role as the provider of that kind of experience only. It became plain during that class session that my role was altogether other. I learned that each student will ultimately happen upon his or her own path to the language, and that my role as instructor is to facilitate that search and provide as many chances for success as possible. As I strive to supply my students with a diverse array of experiences, a number of tools are at my disposal to provide examples of native input in authentic situations. The development and conscientious use of these tools entail thinking creatively about the resources at my disposal, which requires not only making imaginative use of the traditional tools we find in textbooks, but also of artifacts, literary texts, television and film, music, sports, current events, and any other object inhabited by living culture, including the vast Hispanic communities to be found in even the most unlikely places in the United States.
Technology is also increasingly becoming a powerful classroom tool in furnishing ubiquitous access to these kinds of artifacts, but must be harnessed and deployed effectively to provide structured, authentic experiences, and never utilized for its own sake. My own knowledge of current web technology has further yielded mechanisms to enhance my students’ experiences both in and outside of class. These mechanisms include the actively administering course management systems, leveraging social media, designing independent, interactive course web sites with blogs and forums, and utilizing recent developments in geo-location and mobile web technology to access and deliver authentic, meaningful content to students in the spaces they already inhabit. My foreign language classroom also allows ample room for language’s inherent improvisatory, performative aspects (beyond chance modifications of vocabulary exercises). Ultimately, though, I believe that a fundamental part of being an effective instructor is my capacity to realize when the moment comes to relinquish control and let my students lead me to what makes language interesting for them.
A communicative classroom that employs all of these tools might take the following shape. The reading of a text —the content of the story is immaterial, but let us take “1985,” a short story by Mexican Juan Villoro, as an example— can be utilized in a number of ways. I have students reflect independently on the meaning of the story as they read it, and post an analytical discussion question on a class-wide message board. Other students can consider the question and bring their ideas to class, promoting a lively, structured, improvisatory conversation, in which students must modify the ideas they wish to express based on the observations of their peers. I supplement the conversation with geo-tagged images, videos, and film clips contrasting the rich and poor areas of Mexico City that Villoro’s protagonist might have encountered, audio of the music he was obsessed with, and newspaper articles contemporary with the plot, and ask students to do the same. After identifying the main themes of the text in plenum, students write, in script form, continuations of the story’s open-ended conclusion that creatively address those themes. Before turning them in for corrections, students may peer review one another’s scripts and provide suggestions for revision. Finally, the corrected “mini-dramas” are performed before the whole class, without scripts, and with sets, costumes, and relevant audio-visual aids. Alternatively, performances can be filmed outside of class and screened during class time. My role in this classroom is to facilitate discussion and to provide the opportunity for students to express themselves meaningfully.
I have had the privilege in my time at Brown to experience a variety of teaching contexts and to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching practice across a diverse set of disciplinary concerns. I have been students’ first contact with the language, assisted advanced students in bridging the gap between classroom language and literary analysis, and helped develop the professional language capacities of medical students with Hispanic patients. I have had the chance to further reflect on and develop my own teaching practice by acting as a mentor for my peers. Additionally, I have taken considerable advantage of the departmental and campus resources to cultivate my reflective teaching practice. I am constantly reappraising the effectiveness of my instruction and instructional materials based on student feedback, and believe my enthusiastic and demanding, but relaxed classroom demeanor is effective in providing an exciting, comfortable environment in which students feel confident enough to speak up, make errors, and improve. I have been delighted to see many of my students go on to perform adeptly and confidently in advanced Spanish courses, to take advantage of study abroad programs, or to become concentrators in the field of Hispanic Studies.
My goal in the Spanish classroom is foremost to motivate and engage students to think, talk, and write about the subject matter, and to help them use it in a meaningful way. As a language teacher, I have the immense fortune of teaching a subject whose matter is thinking, talking, and writing. The set of relevant topics and the ability to create interdisciplinary spaces are limitless; that is, the possibility of motivating and stimulating students to be excited about learning is far greater in language than in many other subjects. I seek constantly to leverage this infinite toolbox to create a more engaging, interactive classroom environment in which students can communicate effectively and effusively about the things that they feel are worth communicating, and can transform a mere classroom experience into an authentic breakthrough, and be themselves transformed.