Course Description
Designed for students interested in developing a functional use of Spanish for the professions (business, education, law, medicine, social work, etc.), from a Hispanic cultural perspective. Students will have an opportunity to practice and develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. The Spanish-speaking world will provide the cultural context, and the area of business the content area.
Reflective Narrative
In SPAN 305, I learned to develop my Spanish communication skills in areas such as business, education, law, medicine and social work, among others. This class helped me to acquire the appropriate vocabulary for the professions previously mentioned, with the purpose of raising my linguistic record. In addition, I learned about Spanish-speaking cultures through the geography, history, and common practices of their people. For this reason, I wrote "Pertenencia e Identidad Latinoamericana a través de la Música" (Latin American Pertenence and Identity through Music), where I addressed the historical similarities of Latin American countries in the songs, "Somos más americanos" (We are more American) from the Mexican regional group, Los Tigres del Norte, and "Latinoamérica" from the Puerto Rican urban group, Calle 13. The first song refers to the territory that Mexico lost to the United States in 1846, after the Mexican-American War. The authors convey the message that Mexicans are discriminated in what was once their own territory, but they are still hard-working and respectful people. In the second song, they talk about U.S. interventionism in Latin America and how they have exploited its natural resources. However, the natural wealth of Latin America will never be held by the United States, which symbolizes egocentrism and artificiality. In this class I also improved my grammar with exercises that put into practice my knowledge of accents and verb tenses. In addition, I learned to express myself more professionally through discussions of current Latin American social issues, such as the protests against the presidents of Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia. This class is similar to SPAN 305 and SPAN 395.