Needs Assessment

Rationale for project: this project was developed in order to give students-in particular native speakers-an opportunity to apply an integrative and creative approach in their exploration of Mexican geography and culture through the use of Spanish language research sources; in so doing, they will gain greater proficiency of previously learned Spanish vocabulary and structures, and will be able to learn and utilize new vocabulary and structures in meaningful, contemporary contexts.

What needs it addresses: this module fills the need to address students’ lack of knowledge of basic hemispheric geography, history and culture while it also offers students a chance to apply previously taught structures as well as newly learned ones in real-life, practical situations.

Who it serves: this unit module serves first-year level language students studying Spanish for Spanish Speakers, although it may also be used with students within the Spanish as a second language program.

How we know it is needed: That a curriculum module like this one is needed is evident first of all from Spanish, social studies and history teachers’ experiences in the classroom showing students far behind from where they should be in terms of a hemispheric cultural awareness, including a lack of knowledge concerning hemispheric geography.  For example, in some schools, most students are not aware that Mexico forms a part of North America.

Secondly, Spanish teachers understand that geographical and historical knowledge form an important and necessary part of Spanish native speaking students’ sense of self (as this group all were either native born in Latin America or are second or third generation descendents of those who were).  It is important to note that this geographical/historical knowledge forms a key underpinning of Latin American culture-Mexican in particular.

Philosophical and theoretical basis for unit: the philosophical basis of this unit is a holistic and cultural one, as it seeks to raise the level of cultural awareness and pride in students’ Latino heritage as it views the student as a member of a cultural group within American society that forms a sub-culture that carries a variety of influences-cultural, social, and linguistic.  This group has ties to both the supraculture of American society as a whole, and to Latin American cultures both inside and out of our society as well.

This unit utilizes an integrative, hands-on approach.  Students are given the opportunity to creatively explore and integrate areas of knowledge from various disciplines including history, geography, and Spanish as they gain greater self-awareness as well as awareness of others.  They increasingly realize that they are connected to a larger group within our society and to groups outside of it as well.  With this holistic view, they gain a greater sense of identity as they advance their language proficiency.  Tied to the identity issue is the question of assimilation or aculturation which is posed to Latin Americans and others of non-anglo origin in our society.  It is this teacher’s hope that this unit shall aid those youngsters in finding their place in this world.  Perhaps that will take the form of those Latino youths balancing some degree of cultural assimilation into larger American society with developing a greater sense of their own cultural group’s heritage, language and history.

Goals

The broad based goals for this unit include the following:

1) Students will develop and demonstrate a true appreciation of their Mexican heritage by doing an in-depth study of the geography, history, and culture of Mexico (State of Ill. 29.a-c, 29.e of the Illinois Learning Standards (I.L.S.).
Standards 2.1 & 2.2 of the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning (N.S.F.L.L.). A link to the National Standards is provided below, in the Objectives section. For links to Illinois Standards, go to: http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/lstandards.html

2) Students will reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language (State of Ill. 30.a.2 of the I.L.S.; Standards 3.1 & 3.2 of  the N.S.F.L.L.

3) Students will demonstrate an understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the of the cultures studied and their own (State of Ill. 29.B.4a & b of the I.L.S.; Standards 4.1 & 4.2 of the N.S.F.L.L.