Cultivating Intercultural Competence through Service Learning Abroad

This course aims to help students acquire skills and knowledge needed to promote understanding of individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds, without reinforcing stereotypes in the name of cultural difference. This course will (1) utilize, as a guide/lead, the concept of contact zones, zones of exchange that divide but simultaneously connect us and them; and (2) have each student conduct a semester-long ethnographic project concerning the contact zone. To that end, the student will serve and explore the community around us, in particular the Spanish-speaking community in Seville (Spain), through academic investigation and service work while abroad.

Course consists of classroom meetings, community projects outside of class, and reflective assignments, through which the student will improve her/his use of Spanish, discover the local community, and help the people that live in that community.

Class objectives and activities include (1) discuss relevant issues to the community, such as immigration, health care, educational, and political and social programs; (2) delve further into the effects of service-learning on the acquisition of second languages; (3) reflect on what we have learned from the community; (4) broaden our knowledge about the Spanish language variation; and (5) improve their intercultural communicative competence in Spanish.