Electives
SPAN 581: Spanish Phonetics
Dr. Tania Leal – 3 credits
This course offers an introduction to the sound system of Spanish with special attention to its value for teaching and learning in the language classroom. By exploring how Spanish organizes its sounds, class participants will strengthen their ability to hear, analyze, and transcribe sounds, while also improving their own fluency and awareness of variation across the Spanish-speaking world. Emphasis will be placed on identifying contrasts between English and Spanish that often shape learners’ experiences, as well as on developing strategies for addressing common pronunciation challenges in the classroom. Participants will also explore dialectal diversity and learn to integrate phonetic insights into lesson planning, feedback, and classroom practice. By the end of the course, class participants will have a clearer understanding of Spanish phonetics and practical tools to support their students’ communicative growth, as well as their own.
SPAN 516: How to Teach Pronunciation
Dr. Tania Leal – 2 credits
This course focuses on how to teach Spanish pronunciation in the language classroom. Class participants will examine the challenges learners often face when acquiring Spanish sounds, drawing on contrasts between Spanish and English as a guide. Building on current research, participants will explore strategies to support students’ pronunciation development, practice with digital tools, and design pedagogical activities grounded in both theory and classroom realities. They will also review distinctive dialectal features and consider how to address variation in their teaching. By the end of the course, participants will have created a set of practical activities, supported by research, that they can implement in their own classrooms.
SPAN 541 Afro-descendant Identity and Culture: African Influences in the Hispanic World
Dr. John Maddox – 3 credits
Cultural and literary forms of African-descended writers in Spanish-speaking world. Focus on African presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. Conducted in Spanish. This class is focused on black authors and authors who treat the African Diaspora in the Spanish-Speaking world. It is centered in the Caribbean, the space most associated with Afro-Hispanism, but it includes parts of Mexico, the United States and South America from the origins of Black literature to today. What unites these texts is a concern with discourses of black identity and cultural production, the legacy of African enslavement, and the links between race and marginality. Texts include film, music, narrative, poetry, and essay from the nineteenth century to the present.
SPAN 516 Incorporating Afro-descendant Culture in the Language Classroom
Dr. John Maddox – 2 credits
Methods workshop on how to creatively incorporate Afro-Hispanic topics in the Spanish language classroom. This workshop provides K-12 teachers with online resources to create course materials. Legislation related to incorporating Black identity into the classroom will be discussed. Language-focused, leveling, and interdisciplinary suggestions will be provided for basic language for elementary, middle, and high school. Teachers will work in teams, share ideas for implementation, and create materials that are useful for their classrooms.
Core Courses
FL 514 - Action Research
Dr. Michele Back – 3 credits
Introduces students to research methodologies that pursue action (change) and research (understanding) concurrently. Students will learn how to do a systematic inquiry into the teaching/learning environment of a classroom with the goal of developing reflective teaching practices. This course is intended as preparation for an action research project that students will conduct over the course of the following year
Action Research Presentation, Session 1
Dr. Brianna Janssen Sánchez – 1 credit
Culmination of Action Research conducted in the student’s classroom. Consists of a presentation to faculty and students of the final version of the paper, which will also be submitted for digital storage in the library. These course components are graded based on the Spanish Action Research Project Rubric and the Spanish Action Research Presentation Rubric. The final written project must be approved before being presented to faculty and students.
This credit should be registered for during the session in which a student presents their Action Research project.
Optional Courses
SPAN 510 - Conversación Avanzada
University of Guanajuato Staff – 1 credit
Designed to improve Spanish conversational skills. Students will learn about and discuss a wide variety of current topics, including historical influences on contemporary culture; art and media; and societal, religious, and political institutions.
New topics each year – syllabus will vary by instructor. No text purchase required.
Session 2: (July 12 – 31, 2026)
Electives
SPAN 581: Individual Differences in Language Learning
Dr. Julio Torres – 3 credits
In the field of second language acquisition, it is widely accepted that learners’ individual differences account for much of the variability observed in second, additional, and heritage language (Ln) learning. Individual differences are personal characteristics that all people possess, but which vary in degree (e.g., motivation). In this course, we will briefly review the theoretical and methodological considerations that help explain why learners progress differently in their development of an Ln. We will then examine key individual differences in the field, including age, cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory), psychosocial factors (e.g., willingness to communicate), and affective factors (e.g., linguistic insecurity). Finally, we will analyze empirical studies investigating the role of these differences in the linguistic behavior of Ln learners.
SPAN 516: Generative AI & Differentiated Writing Instruction
Dr. Julio Torres – 2 credits
This course explores the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to support differentiated writing instruction across diverse learner populations (e.g., second language learners, heritage speakers, elementary school children). The course begins with a critical examination of the ethical and pedagogical dimensions of generative AI. Students will then engage with emerging research on the role of generative AI in world language contexts, with particular attention to writing development. Finally, students will learn to design and evaluate instructional strategies that leverage generative AI to personalize content brainstorming, scaffold learning, and provide adaptive feedback that addresses learners’ individual needs.
SPAN 541: Growing Up Elsewhere: Latin American Coming-of-Age Narratives of Migration
Dr. Martín Gaspar – 3 credits
“Coming-of-age” novels or Bildungsromane tell the story of moral and psychological development of protagonists from childhood to adulthood. This makes them good narratives to explore societies and how individuals become part of them. Also, this makes them ideal to look at the impact of migration. In this course, we will explore Latin American narratives (novellas, short stories, and films) that tell stories of growing up “elsewhere.” These fictions depict the lives of children and young people confronted with a new environment, language, cultural expectations, which they struggle to understand and participate in. We will explore a corpus of narratives from various countries (Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Peru, Guatemala, Colombia) in which internal or international migration impacts the decisions, possibilities, and ultimately the future lives of children as they grow up in “another” culture.
SPAN 516 - Teaching Coming-of-Age Stories in the Spanish Classroom
Dr. Martín Gaspar – 2 credits
This course explores the most basic elements of all conventional narratives in general and of “formation” narratives (or Bildungsromans) in particular—the beginning, the middle, and the end—to design activities that teach students to think closely about these narrative blocks with a view to expressing them in Spanish. First, we will look at different ways of beginning a narrative (from the perspective of content, grammar, and structure), considering that beginnings tend to hint at what is to come. In the second week, we will focus on the “middle,” that is, the point at which conflicts and adventures are ongoing and unresolved. We will then examine how suspense is generated and the need to know “how it ends.” Finally, we will explore strategies for teaching endings (in their various forms and definitions) by exploring different models. Along the way, we will take advantage of being in Guanajuato to find how cultures set out to frame “beginnings,” “middles,” and “ends” in their stories, buildings, cultural artifacts, and museums.
Core Courses
FL 512 - Teaching for Proficiency: Methods and Strategies
Dr. Carolina Bustamante – 3 credits
Explores how proficiency standards can be applied in the classroom in conjunction with state and local standards based on the national standards for foreign language education as established by the American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Students learn how to integrate the five Cs of world language education: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities, with clearly defined proficiency standards for foreign language performance.
FL 513 - Second Language Assessment: Principles and Strategies
Dr. Rachel Shively – 3 credits
Equips participants with up-to-date knowledge of best practices in assessing foreign language development and provides them with meaningful opportunities to practice creating assessment tools and evaluation criteria in a collaborative setting. The approach to assessment emphasized in this course is multidimensional and Standards-based. Course participants complete a portfolio of assessment tools for classroom use.
SPAN 504 - Action Research: Presentation, Session 2
Dr. Brianna Janssen Sánchez – 1 credit
Culmination of Action Research conducted in the student’s classroom. Consists of a presentation to faculty and students of the final version of the paper, which will also be submitted for digital storage in the library. These course components are graded based on the Spanish Action Research Project Rubric and the Spanish Action Research Presentation Rubric. The final written project must be approved before being presented to faculty and students.
This credit should be registered for during the session in which a student presents their Action Research project.
Optional Courses
SPAN 511 - Gramática Avanzada
Dr. Rachel Shively – 1 credit
Addresses selected topics in Spanish grammar, with particular focus on grammatical difficulties for English speakers with the goal of helping students improve proficiency in the language. Course conducted entirely in Spanish.
New topics each year – syllabus will vary by instructor. No text purchase required.
Contact the Summer Language Institute
SOU Summer Language Institute Program
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
Spanish: 541.552.6743
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