“Teaching keeps me learning from, and along with, my students. Each student’s experience is unique. I am able to challenge myself inside and outside the classroom, not being afraid to seek out creative and innovative approaches in order to question what naturally is taken for granted.” (Teacher Appreciation Week highlight)

 

My pedagogical approach to language instruction challenges the tendency to privilege the core skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) through attention to grammar, vocabulary and culture, with little or no focus to metalinguistic issues and the political nature of language itself. Through my critical and open pedagogy to language instruction and linguistics courses, students’ multilingual backgrounds become central to the classroom, where monolingualism is not conceived as the norm. Language(s) are more than a simple set of linguistic norms, and critical approaches to teaching languages must be aware that these norms are based on social consensus. Although our social practices tend toward normativity, I strongly believe that our pedagogical practices must question them.

My language pedagogy engages with critical pedagogy frameworks where student-centered and student-driven approaches go beyond simply acquiring linguistic skills; metalinguistic issues, significant cultural and socio-political concerns are introduced on the first day of class. Thus, I conceive of language courses as content courses where I motivate students to be creative and active critical thinkers, always encouraging interdisciplinary collaborations. My teaching and learning approaches foster knowledge and inquiry; I envision students as knowledge producers instead of knowledge consumers. My open pedagogy based on transparency and self-reflection moves away from approaches the externalize and stereotype language learning, and builds on a global language classroom focus on students’ understanding, questioning, and compassion.

Selected courses taught with sample syllabi

Spanish in Action! (Fall 2022)

This class aims to expand student’s lexical and grammatical understanding and emphasize reading, writing and conversation, through the different styles of writing. While engaging students in inquiry, research, writing and reflection (individually and collaboratively), the goal is to promote students’ cultural, social and political awareness by developing their knowledge about Spanish-speaking communities, students will gain a greater understanding of Spanish’s presence in the United States, and question/think critically how linguistic practices influence cultural, social and political issues.

An older version of this course was taught in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022.

 

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Spanish for Bilingual Speakers: Challenging Power Structures (Fall 2020)

This course, “Elementary Spanish for Heritage Speakers II.”  is the second level of a course designed for bilingual speakers to allow these students to obtain and develop the necessary skills to communicate (con énfasis en la lectura y escritura) in Spanish. This class is designed for students who have been reared in a Spanish-speaking environment and speak or understand some Spanish as a result of having heard it in the home and community by parents or grandparents, family, friends, and neighbors. In this class, we build self-assurance and confidence in our language practices. We also stress the development of our agency in the process of building relationships between language and sociopolitical issues and establish connections between our own lives and the world(s) we live in.

An older version of this course was taught in Fall 2017, and Elementary Spanish for Heritage Speakers I in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017.

Read more about this course in this post, In Search of Meaning: Co-opoing with the World Our There, published on Visisble Pedagogy.

 

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The Global Spanish-Speaking Community: From Imperial Conquest to Latino/a Diaspora (Fall 2019)

In this class,  we explored the histories and present-day realities of the diverse Spanish-speaking communities (Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean, Spanish-speaking Africa, and the US Latino/a populations). With an emphasis on the United States, we developed understandings of these communities in relation to key elements of sociocultural life such as identity, power, language, nation, and labor. We will be critical researchers and creators of a compilation of essays available to the public.

 

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 Linguistic Landscapes: Unpacking Language Hierarchies (Spring 2019)

Does the way that we speak influence the way we interact with people? How does the language or languages that we speak relate to our role in society? How is language represented in the public sphere we live in? In this class, “Introduction to Language,” we explored how our languages and language practices influence the way we interact with people and how language relates to our role in society. We learned about the linguistic diversity in the daily spaces we live in and how languages shape these public spheres: from a visual/written perspective (public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, among other public signs) as well as from a speaking/aural one (interviews, music, background conversations). We were critical researchers and creators of a digital storytelling that investigates the multilingual and multiliterate sociolinguistic ecology of Queens.

An older version of this course was taught in Spring 2018 / Fall 2018.