SPAN 301S: Service Learning in the
Course Description: This course is part of your Spanish language learning experience, and offers you the opportunity to interact in a personal way with members of the local Latino community, thereby enriching your understanding of Hispanic cultures and the Spanish language. It is intended to involve WLC Spanish majors with local Latino communities to experience real-life connections between their Spanish program education and everyday issues in the surrounding Latino communities. Students will become involved in community projects of importance and relevance that engage them in matters relative to justice, compassion, diversity and social responsibility, and help them become effective multicultural community builders.
Reflective Narrative: Completing service learning hours was not something new to me since I had already completed service learning hours for a course I took at Hartnell College. Ever since I decided to become a teacher, I began to work with children to gain more experience interacting with small children. I notice how some schools don't provide tutors for children who struggle with their English, this is something that it's so important since students tend to fall behind when they don't know how to speak, write and understand English. Every school should provide some type of help for English language learners who need that extra support in their education. The school's mission is to make sure all students meet the state's standardized test therefore they should help these students in order to fulfill their mission. Through out the time I worked at this particular elementary school where my main focus was to help all the students who needed extra help completing their classwork, specifically those who had trouble with their English. Using my bilingual skills, I helped them communicate with their teacher, who did not speak Spanish at all, helped them understand the instructions of all the assignments they were required to do during class.