Joan Clifford, Visiting Assistant Professor
Romance Studies, Arts & Sciences

Project Description

In this ongoing Service-learning project, students explore issues of cultural assimilation, literacy, and access to educational opportunities for the growing Latino community in the United States. They used iPods with microphone attachments to record observations from their service learning experiences. Students in this course will also be asked to listen to archived interviews with Spanish-speakers in the community, which will facilitate listening comprehension practice, provide exposure to authentic speech patterns and accents, and also disseminate content to the students outside of class.

In the Fall 2006 semester, the project involved Duke students interviewing Latino/a students and parents at Jordan High School about their experiences within Durham Public Schools. These testimonials provided additional information to further the insights gained last year with a written survey. The video and audio components of the iPods were used in the production and editing of the interviews. Duke students also continued to use their iPods to record their own audio journals reflecting on their service at the high school.

Project start date: August 1, 2005

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Joan Clifford, Visiting Assistant Professor, Romance Studies, Arts & Sciences

Project description

The grant team planned to develop a digital video archive of authentic interviews with native Spanish speakers living in central North Carolina, to serve as the basis for language-based activities to be used in homework, individual practice, skill assessment and in-class practice in undergraduate Spanish courses.
“Voices from the Latino Community in North Carolina” is a digital archive of interviews with Latino immigrants living in North Carolina in 2004-2005. The interviews were conducted by a team of instructors from the Duke University Spanish Language Program as well as undergraduate students. The project participants represent a wide range of nationalities and professions.

The project team also created interactive activities that may be used to practice linguistic skills and to explore issues of immigration. Access to authentic stories helped expand our knowledge of the growing Latino community and perhaps dispelled some of the misconceptions about the Latino community in North Carolina. Many sections of the interviews were transcribed (in Spanish) and new materials were continually added to the project website through 2006.

Project start date: 5/19/2004
Funding awarded: $15,850

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Deborah Reisinger, Visiting Assistant Professor
Romance Studies, Arts & Sciences

Instructors who divide their time between teaching and coursework often complain of spending hours developing practical, creative activities for class. To assist them we developed the Directory of Elementary Language Activities for Instructors at Duke Web site (de l’aide, or “help” in French) with over 200 language instruction activities. The site provides both new and veteran teachers with model communicative activities that address the 4 skills and 5 Cs, thus reducing time spent on lesson plans while at the same time training instructors in best practices. Instructors may search under warm-ups, grammar, vocabulary, and culture to find activities that help teach the basic elementary language sequence. An instructor may also submit her own activities and be credited on the site, a feature designed to reward teachers for innovative practices.

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