0.6 A Note to Instructors and Administrators

Dear instructors and administrators,

Thank you for incorporating this Open Educational Resource (OER) in your classroom or curriculum! How you use it is entirely up to you, but let me outline a few possibilities.

Some instructors may choose to present this book in its entirely at the end of the semester to show students that, beyond the walls of the classroom, there is more to be done with Spanish. This may be a good approach for new college students in lower-level Spanish classes with a set language requirement (i.e., you know the students will be signing up for the next level of Spanish the following semester). Why? Well, students have time throughout the semester to develop some linguistic and cultural skills, on the one hand, and perhaps develop a passion for Spanish, on the other. When they have a better feel for language learning, with some communicative competence under their belt, they may be more receptive to the broader message of the OER: if you continue studying Spanish and developing this skillset, there are numerous career opportunities available to you. However, in more advanced classes or in programs without set language requirements, instructors may wish to share the entire book with students at the beginning of the semester to get students thinking about the wide range of career possibilities available to them as educated Spanish speakers. This may also be a smart solution to boost enrollments in Spanish courses the following semester, as students may need to start thinking about their future classes fairly early in the term.

Alternatively, the book can be broken down into more digestible segments, presented chapter by chapter throughout the semester. If a lower-level language class needs to cover five units throughout the semester, one chapter of the OER could be incorporated in each unit. The beauty of this approach is that students are not overwhelmed with information at a single point in the semester, but rather are given more time to process one career at a time. This method can work at any level; more advanced students are likely already thinking about their career prospects, but incorporating practical, career-focused content as early as Spanish 101 can help head off questions like, “Why do I have to learn this?” By showing them career-oriented outcomes, some of the benefits of learning Spanish are more immediately clear to students from the get-go. In addition to seeing the world in new ways and being able to communicate with over 500 million people across the world, there are amazing benefits for Spanish speakers in the workforce, as well as meaningful opportunities to serve Spanish-speaking communities, making a real-world impact with our language skills.

Finally, single chapters can be integrated more holistically into a Spanish curriculum, incorporated to strategically support a major, minor, or certificate’s design. For example, the chapter on Spanish in Speech Language Pathology could be showcased in a class on Medical Spanish, and the chapter on Spanish in the Tech Industry could be featured in a class that utilizes AI. This would require department-level planning but, with a bit of teamwork, could easily be accomplished to broadly highlight career opportunities across classes.

However you choose to incorporate the book, I hope you find it useful as you teach students not just a language, but how that language is helpful and relevant to their lives, situating the linguistic and cultural skills we impart in a real-world context. ¡Suerte!