New instructors to teach college Spanish
Central Lakes College, Brainerd and Staples, has expanded its Spanish Department with the addition of two instructors to teach courses starting this fall.
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CLC offers four credit-based courses in Spanish for the fall term that starts Aug. 22. The college took the action, in part, to meet the need for Spanish-speaking skills among non-Hispanics based on population trends.
The new instructors:
Rhonda Schmidt, who will teach college Spanish over interactive TV from Little Falls, enjoyed leading a 2004 trip to Argentina enough to begin planning another in 2006.
Victoria Montes, a tri-linguist of Spanish descent, will teach two sections of beginning Spanish -- one at noon four days per week and another at 6:30 p.m. twice per week.
Rhonda Schmidt, a Wisconsin native, has 20 years of teaching Spanish and French in the Little Falls School District. She will teach one interactive television section of beginning Spanish from 4:30-6:20 p.m. twice per week.
They will join veteran Jan Kurtz, a full-time Spanish instructor at CLC. Kurtz teaches a section each of beginning Spanish I and beginning Spanish II, as well as intermediate Spanish I this fall. Three days per week she will teach Many Faces of Mexico, the interdisciplinary course that explores cultural, historical and social realities that form contemporary Mexico.
Kurtz, who helped form the Resource Center for Cultures and Languages of the Americas at the college, said retired instructor Liliana Hennis continues to lend her teaching and interpretive skills as an additional CLC-based resource.
"We offer a variety of services dedicated to understanding language and people who speak Spanish," said Kurtz. She said there is and will continue to be a need to learn the language of a significant minority in the United States and this area.
Montes grew up in Germany, where she spoke German in school and Spanish at home. By age 9, she had begun to learn English because two older sisters married Americans. At age 16 she moved to Spain, where she earned her high school degree and specialized in English language and literature toward college degrees.
Vicky Montes brings authentic Spanish heritage to Central Lakes College, Brainerd, this fall as a beginning Spanish instructor. She is also the Spanish Club adviser.
Travel throughout Spain, Germany, France and Portugal enriched the language skills and cultural awareness of this linguist. Montes completed undergraduate and graduate work at the Universidad de Sevilla. Her master's degree is in American literature.
"Between my undergraduate and graduate years, I received a scholarship and conducted post-graduate studies at Northwestern University in Illinois," she said.
Montes taught history of the English language at the Universidad de Sevilla and English as a second language in Spanish high schools before coming to CLC to teach Spanish.
She has heard that area residents are pleased that CLC again is offering the evening class in beginning Spanish. It has become increasingly important for more professionals in the region to have basic Spanish skills because of the growing Hispanic population living and working here.
"It is important to be bilingual to be a better employee," she said. When she arrived last March, Montes was impressed by the number of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Brainerd lakes area and has since come to appreciate the need for non-Hispanics to learn Spanish.
"I would really enjoy leading an international travel group to Spain," she said. Her university connections there are among the advantages for a cultural enrichment opportunity dormant at CLC but renewing in the near future. The international education travel-study program has been on hold since the 2001 terrorist attack in New York City.
Schmidt's language skills began to be honed from weeks at Concordia Language Villages as a high school student. She said she fell in love with languages. "I knew I wanted to do something with languages for a career in sixth grade, where I started learning a language for 20 minutes a day," she said.
She earned majors in French and Spanish from Concordia and added a master's degree in French in 1997 through the University of Iowa's study abroad program.
Schmidt has extensive experience teaching over ITV, the format linking Little Falls to Onamia, Isle and Long Prairie for the college classes this fall.
She went to Argentina last year with a group of her LFCHS students, aided by the "sister city" program that links Little Falls to schools in Buenos Aires and Obera. The latter is in the sub-tropics near the famous Iguazu Falls.
"We're planning a return trip there for the summer of 2006," she said.
She wants her students to come away from their Spanish language experience with a respect for another culture and acceptance that "different isn't bad, it's just different."
Her ITV methods to communicate and help students learn the language include varied class activities that require listening, speaking, reading and writing. Schmidt wants students to obtain the ability to discuss basic topics on a simple level -- school, family, weather, leisure and tourist activities, transportation and more.
Those who are motivated to expand their horizons and enjoy the opportunity to learn about other cultures will find the course rewarding as growing adults, she said.
The CLC Spanish Department sponsors several functions that foster not only cultural understanding but also educational opportunities through the Spanish and Latin American Studies Scholarship. La Mesa is a weekly gathering for conversational Spanish at Northwest Pizza in Brainerd involving college instructors and students.
"The annual Festival Latino coming in October will feature our first cookbook that includes recipes from all Spanish-speaking countries represented in this community, from Spain to Puerto Rico to Mexico," said Montes, the main editor. "A Taste of Culture" is a bilingual resource that should reach a wider audience and serve as another teaching tool.
Montes noted that the book title in Spanish is "El Savor de Nuestras Culturas" -- referring to "our" cultures and not just the predominantly spicy flavorings associated with Mexican food.
Free samples of food in the book's recipes will be available in the CLC booth at the Aug. 2-7 Crow Wing County Fair in Brainerd, as will information about Spanish classes offered throughout the area.