The students in Professor Merly Bernal Dixon’s Intermediate Spanish II class—myself included—had a unique and wonderful opportunity on Wednesday, April 17. Our class met online with students learning English at the Universidad de América in Colombia, giving both classes the chance to practice their language skills with native-speaking peers.
Professor Bernal Dixon prepared our class for the meeting weeks in advance. She had us compile pictures of ourselves, our families, and our lives to share with the Colombian students. The Monday before our meeting, she went over our pictures with us and helped us prepare our introductions in Spanish.
Students in the Universidad de América began class earlier than we generally do, even when accounting for the one-hour time difference between Virginia and Colombia. Thus, on the day of the meeting, our class arrived a half hour early to class, ensuring that we had plenty of time to log onto the meeting at a time that suited the other class as well as our own.
The meeting began with introductions. The EMU group introduced ourselves first, sharing our names, ages, and majors in Spanish. Then, the Universidad de América students introduced themselves with the same identifiers in English. After a brief review of what we would be doing by the hosts, we were sent into breakout rooms.
Due to class size differences, two students from the EMU group had one partner each, and the other two (one of whom was me) had two partners from Colombia. We spent the first twenty minutes speaking in Spanish about various topics, including our families, music, food, and the best places to visit in Colombia. For anyone considering travel to Colombia, the country’s capital, Bogotá, was strongly recommended by both of my partners.
The second twenty minutes were in English. The Colombian students had prepared slides to share about themselves; I had the pleasure of learning about my partners’ families, hobbies, music tastes, favorite foods, favorite places, and favorite celebrities. Personally, I greatly enjoyed learning about la Feria de las Flores (the Flower Festival) in Colombia; it looked like an amazing experience that I would love to see in person someday.
Our time passed quickly; all too soon, we returned to the large group meeting to wrap up. We closed with a Google Forms survey about our experiences with the activity, where we were able to detail what we learned, share how we felt about the meeting, and give recommendations for future activities like this one.
All in all, this was an amazing experience. As a student, I learned a great deal about Colombia and its culture, and I had a wonderful time getting to know my partners. From what I have experienced so far at EMU, this activity is only one of the many reasons why students should participate in the Spanish program here if they have the chance. I certainly hope that this type of activity will be repeated in the future so that other students can enjoy this opportunity as much as my class did.
