- Teaching Philosophy
- Teaching Practice & Research
- Personal Statement on Inclusive Excellence
- Some thoughts about Technology in the Language Classroom
- Writing samples, syllabi and more
Teaching Philosophy
Higher education second language instruction should prepare students for the world that awaits them. For students to develop the skills they need to work, live, and lead after academia, it is essential that we model best practices in language acquisition while also creating intentional connections between the classroom and beyond. Part of that learning should create opportunities for students to develop attainable personal learning goals and ways for them to measure their own growth during the limited time we get to teach them.
Often language instruction is seen as a springboard to the more advanced courses in poetry, theatre, and literature. I am grateful for the time I spent both at Bowdoin as well as in graduate school doing exactly this. So much is lost if you do not read Borges, or Darío, or García Márquez in their original language. I’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude twice: once in English as an undergrad and years later in Spanish while living in Colombia. It was a completely different experience in Spanish. Thanks to the language I had acquired over time, I was able to understand the inside jokes and cultural allusions, almost as if there had been invisible text on the page that I was now suddenly able to see.
I hope that my students will achieve a level of competency in the language in order to have a similar magical experience. However, I also appreciate that today’s university students have so many other pressures and anxieties weighing upon them once college ends. That may mean forgoing a transcendent experience in a second language in order to earn a living. Too often students will opt out after learning the basics. My hope is that by instructing them at the beginner and intermediate level I have at least planted a seed and given them strategies so that should they pursue further language study, a foundation will be in place.
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Teaching Practice
My teaching practice is informed by the work of SLA researcher and pedagogue Bill Van Patten who is emphatic that language is too abstract and complex to teach explicitly. Language acquisition cannot be achieved through memorization and drills but through carefully scaffolded, proficiency-oriented, student-centered tasks that give the learner the opportunity to create language in a communicative context.
Like many instructors who embrace student-centered learning, my teaching has evolved tremendously over the past decades. As I stated in an article I co-wrote in 2013, I see myself as an interactive facilitator—as opposed to an evaluative expert—and strive to make my courses more student-led than teacher-led. I minimize lecturing in favor of small- and large-group discussion and discovery-based inquiry.
In the intermediate level, I encourage the development of projects that are shaped by the students’ goals in the language. As an example, two of my Oberlin students with interests in sports, language and international relations took what they learned in my Advanced Conversation and Communication in Spanish course to the next level by interviewing a player for the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) in Spanish. Their project demonstrates what is possible when students apply their language goals to their individual interests.
My classroom is a place where learning is a shared goal, so I prioritize making time for questions, comments, and opportunities for me to learn from my students and for them to learn from each other. I believe that teachers and students should interchange the roles of expert and apprentice in the classroom. I tell my students that I teach because I want to learn, and that I enjoy learning from them.
In addition, I am interested in developing ways to teach listening effectively in the Second Language (L2) classroom. Many teachers believe (and textbooks reinforce) the idea that students will learn to listen if we give them great amounts of passive input. The reality is quite different. Listening comprehension is not a passive skill. In fact, it is a “complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance.” (Vandergrift, 1999)
I have studied listening from a variety of viewpoints—linguistic, neurological, psychological, and metacognitive—in order to teach it more effectively in the language classroom. What I have learned has allowed me to help students understand how they listen and develop techniques that work best for them. This results in greater concentration, engagement, and learning and equips them with strategies that they can use across other subjects and pursuits.
My research in listening led me to further exploration of listening tasks for the L2 classroom, which then led me to Radio Ambulante, the award winning Spanish language podcast. In my classroom, Radio Ambulante (RA) provides our students with Latin American voices and compelling long-form storytelling in a way that textbook audio or news broadcasts cannot.
Concurrent with my teaching and research, I serve on the RA team as the Director of Education. I meet with teachers from around the world who want to use RA with their students. I have written and edited several Listening Guides to accompany RA episodes (available for use with the guided listening app Lupa), have made numerous presentations on effective listening practices, and have hosted several online meet-ups with teachers to brainstorm activities and exercises to accompany episodes. A full account of these presentations can be seen in my CV and on my website.
Finally, in my classroom practice I use Open Educational Resources (OER) as often as I can. Printed textbooks are expensive and often dated. Using open tools allows for flexibility, creativity and cost savings. I am grateful for my work as a co-editor of two publications on open educational practices in language teaching and the opportunity to see first-hand some of the remarkable tools being created around the world by L2 educators. Here are links to the 2013 and the 2019 editions of this book (which is also open and available for download).
Inclusive Excellence
You can read my statement here
Here is a link to my publications via Google Scholar.
Some thoughts about Technology and the Language Classroom
While at Oberlin, I ran a technology center dedicated to exploring how technology can be used in the teaching of languages. While this might sound surprising, as a technologist I do not believe technology is a panacea. Technology does not correct bad teaching, nor does it replace good teaching. When used wisely, technology can amplify what is already happening in a face to face classroom and make it more visible and accessible. However, ill-planned technology can and will exacerbate existing disparities, tensions, inequalities, and inefficiencies in the classroom.
When I use technology with my students, I make sure it is something I know and have used as part of my own practice. I make sure I can articulate for myself as well as my students why I have chosen this tool and what I hope will happen as a result. I ask my students for feedback throughout the process, being mindful that what worked in one class may not work in another. I know through my own experience as well as working with other faculty that using technology just for its own sake and without any type of pedagogical goal can often impede learning.
More of my thoughts and examples of my writing can be found through the links below:
Teaching Listening: a series of posts I wrote about the research I have done into the process of developing effective listening strategies in the L2 classroom
Using radio in the language classroom: Creating a radio show is a great way to get students to practice their spoken language skills in creative ways. This post talks about what I did to make it happen and provides links to some of the shows we created as part of HISP303
Tune In, Turn On, Make Radio Workshop Info and Shows
Radio Ambulante: this is a link to a series of posts I wrote about the work I have done with my own classes and Radio Ambulante while at Oberlin.
LLU podcasts: before podcasting was a “thing,” on my blog I hosted a series of meet ups, hangouts, live and recorded events to hear ideas, questions and expertise about topics of shared interest
Course Description for Conversation and Communication in Spanish Speaking Worlds (HISP 303)
