Course Description

The Spanish and Latin American film course I teach is a 300-level language conversation course. The chief learning objective is to develop L2 communicative competencies through critical analysis of the films and in-depth discussions about the stories, characters, and lessons learned. The themes generally address social justice issues in the Spanish-speaking world. The films delve deep into profoundly relevant problems caused by economic disparity, illegal immigration, gender inequality, racism, and marginalization of Black and Indigenous people.

Approximately one-third of the discussions occur in the classroom, one-third are conducted in a computer lab as instructor-guided teletandem sessions, and one-third are sessions initiated by the students off-campus. This diverse distribution of immersion activities ensures that each student will receive the immersion required to achieve the L2 competency objectives by the end of the course.

Each student is assigned a language partner who studies EFL in Mexico. Students are matched per L2 proficiency, gender preference, and academic interests. I work directly with the course instructor in Mexico to craft the tandem sessions with task-based activities. My teaching partners abroad and I devise robust Spanish-English vocabulary sets used by both groups of students. The vocabulary sets are essential to keep the conversations productive. The vocabulary helps students express their thoughts clearly and articulately.

Students may be alarmed by the amount of vocabulary. However, many of the terms have a lexical cognate association with English, so students can generally learn and use the new words quickly. The vocabulary is thematic, specific, and essential to the course. Students need it to articulate ideas and opinions about the film themes.

As a language instructor, I view the blend of cinema, language, social justice, and telecollaboration as a fitting pedagogical recipe for building L2 communicative competencies, cultural awareness, critical skills, social responsibility, and personal empowerment.

Another positive outcome of the course is students connecting with peer learners who live in a country where the L2 is spoken. Given the ubiquity of social media and video-chat programs, today's students have unprecedented access to global education. Language teachers may be the best qualified to initiate the process through cooperative teaching partnerships with EFL teachers at schools abroad.