LEARNING BY DOING: SPANISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS AS A LIVING LAB

European Scientific Journal February 2015 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.2 ISSN: 1857 - 7881 (Print) e LEARNING BY DOING: SPANISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS AS A LIVING LAB Grisel M. Garca Prez 0 0 University of British Columbia , Okanagan, BC , Canada This paper addresses the impact of a sustainable teaching model in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia in the Okanagan (UBCO). During the past few years, the growing number of students wanting to learn Spanish has become evident, class size has increased from 30 to 70, but manpower has remained the same. The trade of has been that it has become almost impossible to give immediate individual feedback to the students in the classroom, so monitoring language learning has been affected. In language learning, feedback is understood as any communication between the instructor and the student that provides information about the student's performance in a given task. When this communication breaks, the learning process is affected. So, this eminent class increase promoted the idea of creating a learning space for students taking a course in Spanish Applied Linguistics. Most specifically, the course was designed to engage undergraduate fourth year students in project based learning to foster the integration of teaching and research. Theoretical applied linguistic concepts were introduced in class, and the experiential learning approach was used to allow the students opportunities outside the classroom to enact the concepts learned through classroom observations, tutoring, service learning, creation of supplementary materials and on-going reflection. The paper includes a detailed description on how the course was conducted, what learning opportunities the students were exposed to, and what the overall results of the course were. Experiential learning; monitoring; sustainability - willingness to learn how to teach Spanish. What they learn was shaped by the assignments, reflections and assessments they were invited to do. Another shared goal was to help students enrolled in first year large Spanish succeed in the learning of Spanish as a foreign language. The objective of this paper is to explain how the experiential learning approach was used to allow the students opportunities outside the classroom to enact the concepts learned through classroom observations, tutoring, service learning, creation of supplementary materials and on-going reflection. Another objective of the paper is to analyze the impact this approach had on the students' motivation. Context The Spanish Program at UBC Okanagan offers between 24 and 27 courses per school year plus 2 first and 2 second year language courses in the summer. First and second year courses are devoted to learning the language and there are two third year courses (Span-301 and Span-302) which include a more advanced study of the language. The other third or fourth year courses cover specializations like literature, linguistics, or translation. Usually, first year classes are large and the numbers start decreasing as the level increases. (Table 1). Eight hundred and eighty five students are currently enrolled in the Spanish program at UBCO. From these students, 600 are taking courses at the 100 level. At this level, students are graded with two midterm exams, four journals, an oral presentation, two reading comprehension exercises, four online vocabulary quizzes, online exercises (ilrn) and a final exam. Up to end of the second half of the winter semester 2009, Spanish language classes at UBCO ranged from 20 to 30 students and it was manageable to monitor the students' learning in class. Students were given immediate feedback when they were engaged in group discussion, when they answered questions in the classroom, when they completed the exercises assigned in class, and when they wrote their journals. The growing number of students wanting to learn Spanish became evident, class size increased from 30 to 50 and even 60, but there were no new hires. The trade of was that formative evaluation started to be affected. In language learning, feedback is understood as any communication between the instructor and the student that provides information about the students performance in a given task. When this communication breaks, the learning process is affected. So, the reality of having large classes promoted the idea of building a sustainable community among student peers, and at the same time providing the students taking Spanish Applied Linguistics with a unique learning experience. The project This project's vision was to provide opportunities for hands-on experience on campus in a sustainable way. We started working on very basic theoretical linguistic concepts in class and had the 4th year students observed how the theory was put into practice in a real first year Spanish class. Through these observations, fourth year students started gaining a sense of ownership when they were asked to give first year students feedback on the tasks assigned in class. Immediately, they got excited because they were working on something real. Afterwards, through class discussions, they began to feel a sense of learning community: a group sharing the same values who was actively learning together from each other. At the same time, they were individually very concerned with their own professional development. They were more aware of the problems they had with Spanish grammar, and started being more conscious of the mistakes they made. They tried to be a model for the first year students they were assigned, and each small success was taken to a higher level as days went by. From each classroom observation task (four in total), the students were asked to reflect upon what they had learnt, to work closely with students whose progression in language learning was less obvious, and to produce language materials to support language learning. Each of the students in Span-441 made a conscious effort to incorporate the Hispanic culture into the materials they created, thus preserving the heritage of the Spanish language. Span-101 classes had only one undergraduate teaching assistant supporting the professor and this proved not to be enough for a class of almost sixty students. Students taking Spanish Applied Linguistics were used as human resources to the fullest and best potential in all classes. The course provided the students with opportunities: a) to be involved in the teaching/learning process with the mentorship of a faculty member, thus strengthening the undergraduate experience. b) to investigate the factors that contribute to successful language learning. c) to create a bank of supporting online supporting materials for first year Spanish language classes. The course was designed to engage undergraduate students in project based learning to foster the integration of teaching and research. Theoretical applied linguistic concepts were introduced in class, and the experie (...truncated)