MLO 5: Cultural internalization and language immersion
Students demonstrate that they have actively immersed themselves in authentic Hispanic cultural and linguistic environments and have internalized the language and cultural experience, from which they have developed personal understanding and new perspectives of Hispanic communities.
Pathway 1: Study Abroad
Respond to the following prompts for this MLOWork with journal entries from your study abroad experience along the following points:
- Goals / Accomplishments
- List things you wanted to do in Spain/Argentina/Mexico before you left
- Describe things you were able to accomplish
- Describe things you wanted to do, but could not do and why.
- Do you still want to do them and how and when?
- What are some of the things you adjusted to and how did you decide to make those adjustments?
- What support did you have for these adjustments?
- Identify Language Learning Strategies you found effective in each category in the inventory
- Identify Culture Learning Strategies you found effective in each category in the inventory
- Describe how you met the outcome of MLO 5
Pathway 2: By participating in and completing the following cultural learning scenario in the target language:
- Cultural Values in Oral Narratives
- Choose multiple (two or more) ensembles from fiction (novels, short stories, poetry, etc.), nonfiction (essays, articles), media (dance, art, film, music, theater) associated with the particular themes and values you have chosen.
- Evaluate and analyze the chosen sources focusing on the chosen themes. Provide evidence for your interpretation.
- Identify at least two members of the local community of different ages. Prepare interview questions to explore this theme in your interviews. We highly recommend recording them for analysis.
- The interview should last between 15 and 30 minutes per person. Listen deeply to the interviewees. During the interview ask them to tell you about a particular challenging experience related to the theme you are interested in (e.g., immigration, family [history, roles], adaptation process to mainstream American society, etc.). You may ask questions during or after the narratives, letting your curiosity guide you. As you listen, notice what you are hearing from the individuals from a values perspective (it may also be helpful to take down notes).
- Analyze your interviews considering the following questions:
- Did you feel there were noticeable differences in the values expressed in the two narratives? Would you attribute them to the speakers’ age? Provide evidence (from the interviews) to support your argument.
- What did you learn about the process of listening deeply for values? What helped? What made it hard?
- What values of the target culture that you discovered in the ensembles have a connection with those expressed by the interviewees? Provide evidence from the interviews.
- How did your own values potentially influence what you heard and how you interpreted the narratives? Compare and contrast the manifestation of the values that you focused on in the target culture and your own culture.
- After this experience, what would you say about the following quote? Do you feel that it holds any truth? Why? / Why not? Present your analysis making connections with the narratives and your interpretation of them.
MLO 5 helped me to interact with the Hispanic community and practice my Spanish skills. For this MLO, I decided to do pathway 2 which is about inmigration to the United States also named by inmigrants as el otro lado.