Ethnographic Interviews

ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEWS

Students will complete an ethnographic interview with a native Spanish speaker, record the interview audio on the Soundcloud iPad app and post the link to the corresponding D2L discussion board on or before the specified due dates (mid-semester, end of the semester). The interview should elaborate an aspect of culture that has piqued the student’s interest and interview subjects should be able to discuss the topic with the student at length during the 10 minute interview. Interviewing techniques will be rehearsed in class through role-play exercises and guided questions prior to your interview appointment. The in-class interview workshop will provide you with the communicative skills necessary to improvise questions that build on interviewee responses and appropriately exhaust the discussion topic.

21st Century Skills applied

National Standards for Foreign Languages: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, Communities

Modes of Communication: Interpersonal, Presentational

Information, Media, and Technology Skills: Communication, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Technology Literacy

Life and Career Skills: Social and Cross-Cultural Skills

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Blog Assignments

BLOG ASSIGNMENTS

Students are asked to design a personal blog on www.wordpress.com and post 3 weekly entries of 150 words reflecting on their experiences as participants in cultural activities during class meetings and information about Spain and Latin America from reading assignments and documentary film screenings. When referring to readings or films that were not assigned in class, students were asked to cite their sources. Students were encouraged to upload and share photos from group activities on their blog. A weekly writing rubric was available on D2L for specific information about evaluative criteria that progresses from basic to advanced mastery of grammar, syntax and vocabulary as presented in the SPAN 1001-2 section. Weekly rubrics provided students with standards that would gradually increase in difficulty and rigor, challenging them to incorporate more complex grammatical structures and new vocabulary in their weekly writing tasks.

21st Century Skills applied

National Standards for Foreign Languages: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, Communities

Modes of Communication: Interpretive, Presentational

Information, Media, and Technology Skills: Communication, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Information Literacy, Technology Literacy

Return to Spanish Immersion

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Pragda Film Festival

PRAGDA FILM FESTIVAL

OVERVIEW

This summer the Spanish Summer Language Institute received a partial grant to hold a Spanish Film Festival featuring 5 contemporary films from Spain and Latin America. This series was made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States Universities in collaboration with the North Georgia College 2012 Spanish Summer Language Institute and the Department of Modern Languages.

I prepared the students to discuss general themes from the films with a worksheet that introduced the film context, related vocabulary, and questions to draw their attention to general and particular aspects of the film narrative and cinematography. After screening the films on Thursday evening, the students led discussion sessions, exchanging ideas with other audience members, which included members of the North Georgia faculty and the larger local community. Following the discussion, students were to write a 200-word review of the film to be published on their MLAN 1950 blog. The assignment instructions encouraged students to draw on their own lives and experience as they reflected on the film’s themes, using concrete examples to guide their commentary and discussion of similarities and differences between their own lives and the struggles faced by the films’ protagonists. Students were aware that they were not to make generalizations about a nation or culture based on the film. The series included films from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Spain, and Argentina. They explored themes of cultural fusion in music, the struggle for empowerment and autonomy in a context of poverty, artistic collaboration and issues raised by mental health problems.

*Discussion sessions were conducted in both English and Spanish, allowing students to think through their impressions and response to the film in dialogue with audience members from a variety of disciplinary orientations. According to recent research, allowing students to compare and contrast cultural differences in the L1 allows them to express a more complex understanding and appreciation of these differences. An advanced understanding and appreciation of cultural differences has been shown to increase L2 Learner ability to engage and interact with native speakers during a future study-abroad experience (ACTFL Annals Spring 2012).

FESTIVAL PROMOTIONAL POSTER

Please join us for a series of New Films from Spain and Latin America on Thursday evenings from 7-9p. Chico y Rita (June 28) and La Yuma (July 5) will be shown at Shott Auditorium. Antes del Estreno (July 12), La isla interior (July 12), and Las marimbas del infierno (July 26) will be shown in the Special Collections Room 382 at the Library and Technology Center.

All films are subtitled and the series is free and open to the public.

Thursday June 28

Shott Auditorium

Watch the trailer: Chico y Rita

Thursday July 5

Shott Auditorium

Watch the trailer: La Yuma

La Yuma Worksheet

Thursday July 12

Library and Technology Center, Special Collections Room 382

Watch the trailer: Antes del estreno

Antes del estreno Worksheet

Thursday July 19

Library and Technology Center, Special Collections Room 382

Watch the trailer: La isla interior

Thursday July 26

Library and Technology Center, Special Collections Room 382

Watch the trailer: Las marimbas del infierno

Marimbas del infierno Worksheet

This series is made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States Universities in collaboration with the North Georgia College 2012 Spanish Summer Language Institute and the Department of Modern Languages.