Innovation in Language Learning
A Project-Based Experience in a Spanish Undergraduate Course
Carmen Hoyos, Wayne State University (United States)
Abstract
This paper has the aim of presenting a project-based experience which I undertook with my undergraduate students of Spanish at an American university in the Fall of 2017. This was an introductory course to Spanish which involves meeting students for 1 hour and 50 minutes twice a week, for a period of 15 weeks. It has a pre-set syllabus written by the departmental coordination, and each class is filled with new material, usually including new vocabulary and/or various grammar topics. The project-based intervention (experience) led to the in-class making of display and an oral presentation about ‘las ofrendas’ or altars, typically built by Mexicans and other Latin-Americans to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Besides all of the regular course work required in their Spanish language course, which included a great amount of weekly homework, several lesson tests, two exams and a cultural report, the students worked with a song, read a book, cook a dish in class, watched a movie and went to an exhibition at a local museum all related to Mexico or directly to the celebration of The Day of the Dead. In addition, students were also interviewed before and after the intervention was finished. All of the students, who voluntarily participated in the project-based experience, agreed that it was a positive and fun experience which helped them with their learning of the Spanish language throughout the semester.
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