Course Description
Practical use of language skills and cultural awareness through community involvement. Students will work directly with approved study abroad providers or the Latino community of Athens in planned and systematic activities coordinated with a variety of community organizations. Each student will organize, manage, and track his/her community service.
Athena Title
Practicum in Service Learning
Non-Traditional Format
Students enroll in the credit hours they need (one, two, or three). They are required to attend 1 hour of class per week (15 total) in addition to service in the community for an additional 15 hours (1 credit), 30 hours (2 credits), or 45 hours (3 credits). Only three hours of credit taken during the same semester will count for the Spanish or Romance Languages minor or major (the course can only be counted toward the major or minor if the three hours are all taken at once during the same semester). Course includes a service-learning project during the semester that either employs skills or knowledge learned in the course or teaches new skills or knowledge related to course objectives. Students will work on a comprehensive project(s) and may be required to spend considerable time outside the classroom. Students will be engaged in the service- learning component for approximately 50-75% of overall instructional time.
Pre or Corequisite
SPAN 3010 or SPAN 3010H or SPAN 3011
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
For students not participating in an approved study abroad program, the Practicum will be akin to a total immersion Study Abroad experience but without actually leaving the state of Georgia. The aim of the Practicum, at home and abroad, is to increase Spanish language proficiency in general and to expand the students’ cultural awareness and knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. The Practicum will be organized so as to allow for maximum student interaction and collaboration with members of the local Spanish-speaking community. Thus, when this course is taken locally, students will increase their understanding of the situation of Latinos in Georgia. When taken abroad, students will increase their understanding of the situation and culture particular to the study abroad program in question. At home and abroad, students will find themselves interacting with a section of the community with which they hardly interact. In Athens, they attend schools in which minorities are a majority, Latino neighborhoods, a branch of the public Library in which most of the clients are Latinos, etc. Students exposed to a different type of population and culture tend to reflect more on their own culture, and this can happen inside or outside of the US. This aspect is emphasized during discussion sessions of SPAN 4090. Students in SPAN 4090 are more globally connected to a world beyond the UGA campus and the geography of their comfort zone by virtue of their activities in this course. Through the entire course students are exposed to real-life situations. They have to solve and reflect on issues that happen in real-life situations. Furthermore, SPAN 4090 gives students the opportunity to put into practice, in the “real world,” what they learn in class, in a more controlled environment. SPAN 4090 students interact in their assignments mostly with native speakers of Spanish in a real-life situation. This enables their verbal abilities to attain new levels. SPAN 4090 students are required to write in Spanish weekly reflections on their activities (when appropriate, they are asked to establish comparisons between their experiences and class readings) and a final report in Spanish.
Topical Outline
The Department of Romance Languages will work closely with a variety of local community organizations in Georgia and abroad. All student activities will be monitored and coordinated by the instructor of record (a tenure-track or tenured professor in the Department of Romance Languages) for the term in question, in cooperation with representatives from the community organizations that participate in the Practicum. Students will be earning one, two, or three hours of credit for volunteering in the local community. Students will be honing their language skills and the practicum will be monitored by an instructor of record. Short reaction essays, an experience journal, and final paper will be required.
Syllabus