Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola, Romance Languages and Literatures | 2020-2021
Spanish is the most common foreign language selected by LSA students to fulfill their foreign-language requirement. Additionally, every student who chooses to continue their Spanish education beyond the four-semester language requirement must enroll in our bridge course Spanish 277, entitled “Advanced grammar and composition”. In RLL, Spanish 277 is the transitional course between our elementary-language program and our major/minor track — it is an essential grammar course that prepares students for the linguistic complexity abundant in the films, novels, plays, and online media used in our upper-level courses. In the past five years, the Spanish section in RLL has revamped many of our course offerings (new courses, new titles, etc.) in addition to modifying our major/minor requirements, in order to achieve a more balanced and interdisciplinary curriculum. However, we have not yet considered modifications to Spanish 277 in order to accommodate this changing curriculum.
Before implementing any substantial changes to Spanish 277, it will be necessary to survey our students, course instructors, and faculty. This data will facilitate our assessment of the course so that we can understand students’ expectations in addition to what content might be lacking to ensure continued success in our Spanish major and minor. Once this base of knowledge is accumulated, we will work with research assistants to develop online video tutorials that explain Spanish grammar usage in context. These videos are intended to present Spanish grammar to our students in meaningful ways, through a deep engagement with authentic materials provided by the Spanish faculty. The videos will also offer mini-previews into the types of courses that our Spanish section offers at the upper level.