Railey Borman, reporter

Jose Reyes & Morgan Thoem, editors

Beginning fall 2022, the Berry College Department of World Languages will offer a new spanish elective. 

Within the department of world languages, the spanish department at Berry is continually expanding by providing students immersive language activities. These expansions are meant to improve students’ writing, speaking and comprehension abilities. A new way that the department is trying to achieve this goal is with a one credit course that they will offer for three semesters. 

Julia Barnes, associate professor of Spanish and department chair of world language and cultures, will teach the first three pilot courses. Barnes said students prefer a one-credit course as opposed to a more common three-credit course.

“We’re always trying to find things that are going to interest students and draw them in and help them grow and just remove obstacles for them,” Barnes said. “So if a three hour course is just too much for someone one semester, we’re hoping a one hour course would lower the obstacles.” 

Because the course is offered over three semesters, students can earn a full course credit if they take all three courses. 

Professors will rotate every three semesters and can choose whether they teach the course as a book club, an intensive vocabulary course or discussion based on a telenovela. 

“I’m going to choose a very recent Spanish novel, one that’s so recent that there’s no Spanish translation,” Barnes said. 

According to Barnes, without access to an English translation, students have to read and understand the material in Spanish. 

“Reading is just a great way to have authentic Spanish language and be immersed in the language and see how it works,” Barnes said. “You learn a little bit through osmosis, and you learn a lot of vocabulary so those are the goals.” 

According to Barnes, many students watch telenovelas, Spanish shows on Netflix, listen to Spanish music and podcasts outside of the classroom to try to immerse themselves in the language. 

“There are a lot of our students who go out and get engaged,” Barnes said. “This is trying to give them an opportunity to do that, what they were doing anyway, but to give them some credit for it. And maybe it will encourage people who weren’t doing that to do that.”

Kate Gray, junior Spanish major, said that changing the teaching style can help with learning a language. 

“Sometimes knocking down the classroom environment feel helps students open up to learning faster and trying out more ways of speaking,” Gray said. “That’s always better for our practice, to push ourselves past what we’re comfortable doing.” 

The Spanish department offers several extracurriculars, such as the English as a Second Language program, weekly tertulias, which is a conversation hour, Sigma Delta Pi, the spanish honor society and a club called Orgullo. 

Orgullo’s focus is to create an environment for students to learn about and experience Latin American and Hispanic cultures. 

“A lot of times people think it’s the club for Latino students, but that’s not the case,” Barnes said. “It is open to everyone, but it is for people who are interested in that cultural experience.”

Edith Salazar, Orgullo treasurer, said that Orgullo has two meetings a month along with one large event each semester. 

“We have events like Urbana which is basically like a party with a bunch of Latinx music,” Salazar said. “Basically, we just try to educate Berry students on our culture and different cultures in the Latinx community.” 

The spanish department will see it’s new course come into fruition this and will continue to look for ways to create an interactive learning experience for its students.