Comunidades

Comunidades: más allá del aula is the very first Spanish textbook with a complete Spanish community service learning curriculum.  In this increasingly popular method of teaching Spanish, students spend part of their time doing substantial community service learning work within a Spanish-speaking community organization and another part of their time in the classroom.

Comunidades gives today’s Spanish students exactly what they want: the challenge of learning from native-speakers of Spanish, directly participating in Latino cultures, developing their pre-professional skills and contributing something positive to society within the security of a clear, safe and tested curriculum that fosters their success.

Annie Abbott is Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where her students' ratings consistently rank her as an excellent instructor.  She has almost ten years experience coordinating courses and training TAs and has served as Acting Director of Basic Language Instruction in Spanish.

In 2004, Ann revised an existing advanced Spanish conversation course to include community service learning.  Twelve students worked with one community partner that first semester.  Now an average of almost 100 students work with at least eight community partners each semester. Ann directs "Spanish & Illinois" (www.spanishandillinois.uiuc.edu), a program that offers a full range of opportunities for UIUC students to use Spanish in the real world.