Improving Spanish-Language Teacher Retention and Success

FAIN: AC-264174-19

Florida International University Board of Trustees (Miami, FL 33199-2516)
Melissa Baralt (Project Director: July 2018 to December 2023)

A collaborative partnership between Florida International University and Florida Memorial University to improve course content and teacher training in Spanish language and culture at both institutions.

This project will improve Spanish language teacher training at a Hispanic-Serving Institution in Miami, FL so that graduates are better prepared to teach in the culturally diverse settings where they are employed, primarily a Miami HBCU. Thus this project will help black Spanish-language learners at the HBCU have better Spanish-learning experiences and outcomes and reduce teacher attrition of HSI graduates at the HBCU. A team of Spanish-language learning scholars and instructors will conduct a needs analysis on learners’ and teachers’ needs at the HSI and HBCU. Then, they will redesign the Spanish-learning curriculum for black students, prepare and deliver new teacher-training workshops, and evaluate and modify the new curriculum for both teachers and students as needed over the course of the project. Finally, they will disseminate findings and pedagogical materials through a national teacher-training website, academic conferences and journals, and public teacher-training workshops.

Associated Products

Improving Spanish-language teacher retention and success among black Spanish-language learners: An HSI-HBCU collaboration (Article)
Title: Improving Spanish-language teacher retention and success among black Spanish-language learners: An HSI-HBCU collaboration
Author: Amber Robinson
Author: William Hobbs
Author: Habey Hechavarría
Author: Déborah Gómez
Author: Melissa Baralt
Author: Uju Anya
Abstract: This purpose of this paper is to describe a collaboration between Florida International University (FIU; a Hispanic-Serving Institution) and Florida Memorial University (FMU; a Historically Black University) to research how to best support language teachers as well as minority language learners in Spanish foreign language teaching and learning. In 2019, Dr. Melissa Baralt was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to supports this collaboration to improve modern language curricula and teacher-training, with an aim of improving Spanish language courses for African American and Black diaspora students, who remain significantly underrepresented in foreign language programs. This paper is co-written by our team: Dr. Uju Anya, expert in the raciolinguistic affinities and needs of black language learners and expert consultant on this project; Dr. Déborah Gómez, director of the Spanish-language program at FMU; Dr. William Hobbs, chair of Humanities Program at FMU; Habey Hechavarría, Ph.D. student of Spanish and Afrocaribbean studies at FIU; Amber Robinson, undergraduate student (formerly at Howard University, and now a student at FIU), and Dr. Melissa Baralt, PI on the project.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: http://claspprograms.org/pages/detail/43/Publications
Primary URL Description: CLASP commissioned papers
Secondary URL: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dssPnk0re_CP_FzvbPmxqwqoZgEu5NHn
Secondary URL Description: PDF also available here.
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) Commissioned Paper series
Publisher: Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) Commissioned Paper series

A free, task-based and open access Spanish-language curriculum celebrating Blackness in Latin America (Web Resource)
Title: A free, task-based and open access Spanish-language curriculum celebrating Blackness in Latin America
Author: Dr. Melissa Baralt
Author: Dr. Uju Anya
Author: Dr. Aris Clemons
Author: Dr. Déborah Gómez
Abstract: This is a task-based, open-access Spanish language curriculum that centers Blackness in Latin America and Black language learners. It is a free resource for Teachers to use in their Spanish language classrooms. This curriculum was designed based off of a needs analysis study that we conducted with over 100 Spanish language learners at Florida Memorial University (South Florida’s only HBCU) and Florida International University (the largest HSI to graduate Hispanic students in the nation). It is thus based on students’ real-world needs. Teachers will find units with accompanying lesson plans and tasks. Every lesson plan is designed following a task-based methodology. Assessment is also task-based and criterion-referenced. For each unit, we have created a Community Leader video that features a Black scholar and/or community leader who uses Spanish in their life.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://laccmibridge.fiu.edu/editors-toolkit/tasks-lesson-plans-and-materials/

Where are the Black students? Race and Racism in the Spanish Language Classroom (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Where are the Black students? Race and Racism in the Spanish Language Classroom
Abstract: The event addresses the ways in which African American and Black Diaspora students are dissuaded from studying and majoring in Spanish at U.S. colleges and universities, and inaugurates the first postsecondary curriculum designed to center and celebrate Blackness in Latin America, created by Melissa Baralt and collaborators and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Author: Dr. Melissa Baralt
Author: Dr. Uju Anya
Author: Dr. Aris Clemons
Author: Dr. Déborah Gómez
Author: Jazmine Exford
Author: Amber Robinson
Date: 10/04/2022
Location: Online (free online webinar)
Primary URL: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=555391599587786

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