Patricia is an LTS student originally from Spain. She will be graduating in summer 2015.

In what context did your internship take place?

I did an internship in the Intensive Spanish Grammar Review course in Winter 2015. It was a 300-level class with Sayo Murcia and the group consisted mostly of American students, but I remember there was a student from Europe and also a heritage language learner. The learners were very enthusiastic even if they knew the focus would be grammar. Who said students hate grammar? ☺

 

What surprised you most about the internship?

The most surprising part of the internship was the fact that students had to present a grammatical point to the rest of the class. I had never tried this in my teaching career, so it was really interesting to see how students found original ways to help their classmates grasp the language features. It was challenging, but it worked really well because the time they spent researching and preparing their topic helped them gain confidence and become experts on it. I remember a pair used a sonnet by Neruda to exemplify a type of subordinate clause – just amazing!

 

What part of the internship was the most challenging for you?

Well, I love grammar, but I had never taught it outside of an integrated skills class, so it was a new experience for me and that’s why I wanted to intern in this course. Moreover, I hadn’t taught Spanish since 2008, so these two factors pushed me out of my comfort zone and provided me with the challenge I was looking for. Being a native speaker of the language, I had to spend a good amount of time researching the grammatical points I was going to teach. When preparing my presentations, I also considered why English speakers found these topics especially hard and tried to come up with examples that would be tricky and relevant for them.

Would you be willing to share a memorable or special moment from your internship?

There were a lot of memorable moments because of the positive environment in the class. Sayo built rapport with students from day one by playing salsa before the teaching began, through the use of humor and the sharing of personal experiences. For me, it was special every time we pointed out cultural elements, pragmatic differences, and shared personal insights with the class because I feel we were contributing to the development of well-rounded students. I’m really grateful for having had Sayo as my mentor in this internship.