A Multiliteracies Approach to Teaching the Spanish Comedia
Subject Area
Foreign Language Pedagogy
Abstract
Most researchers dedicated to the Spanish comedia do not teach in graduate programs. Consequently, the challenge facing most professors interested in teaching Peninsular Theater is that they must find ways to include this material in classes for students with limited and developing language proficiency, who will probably not pursue graduate-level work in Spanish, and who may not even have any interest in literature or theater at all. This paper explores how the Multiliteracies framework can be adapted for teaching Spanish theatre at the intermediate levels of the curriculum. Multiliteracies is an approach to pedagogy that surfaced in the late 1990s in part as a response to and critique of the Communicative Learning (CL) model. Multiliteracies rejects traditional curricular divisions between skills and content courses, arguing instead that both proficiency and content should be taught at all levels. It provides a template for how “students with limited linguistic competencies [can] read authentic texts,” (137). It argues that a teacher should not adapt the text to better suite his or her students. Instead, they should adapt the tasks given to those students. This paper describes how this model can be used to teach the Spanish comedia in a way capable of presenting issues like genre, gender, historical context, and ideology while still addressing oral, written, and reading proficiency.
Works Cited
Paesani, Kate, et al. A Multiliteracies Framework for Collegiate Foreign Language Teaching. New Jersey: Pearson, 2015.
Brief Bio Note
Dr. Jaime Cruz-Ortiz joined the Kennesaw State University faculty in the fall of 2010. He is an Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages. Dr. Cruz-Ortiz specializes in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish theater. His research interests include Textual Criticism, Translation, Portuguese comedia authors, Early Modern and Baroque poetry, and Latino Hip Hop. He received his Master of Arts from the University of Iowa and Doctorate from the University of Oklahoma.
Keywords
Spanish, Foreign Language Pedagogy, Comedia, Teaching, Theater, Multiliteracies
Location
Room 217
Presentation Year
2017
Start Date
3-23-2017 5:55 PM
Embargo
11-16-2016
Recommended Citation
Cruz-Ortiz, Jaime O., "A Multiliteracies Approach to Teaching the Spanish Comedia" (2017). South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL). 43.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/seccll/2017/2017/43
A Multiliteracies Approach to Teaching the Spanish Comedia
Room 217
Most researchers dedicated to the Spanish comedia do not teach in graduate programs. Consequently, the challenge facing most professors interested in teaching Peninsular Theater is that they must find ways to include this material in classes for students with limited and developing language proficiency, who will probably not pursue graduate-level work in Spanish, and who may not even have any interest in literature or theater at all. This paper explores how the Multiliteracies framework can be adapted for teaching Spanish theatre at the intermediate levels of the curriculum. Multiliteracies is an approach to pedagogy that surfaced in the late 1990s in part as a response to and critique of the Communicative Learning (CL) model. Multiliteracies rejects traditional curricular divisions between skills and content courses, arguing instead that both proficiency and content should be taught at all levels. It provides a template for how “students with limited linguistic competencies [can] read authentic texts,” (137). It argues that a teacher should not adapt the text to better suite his or her students. Instead, they should adapt the tasks given to those students. This paper describes how this model can be used to teach the Spanish comedia in a way capable of presenting issues like genre, gender, historical context, and ideology while still addressing oral, written, and reading proficiency.
Works Cited
Paesani, Kate, et al. A Multiliteracies Framework for Collegiate Foreign Language Teaching. New Jersey: Pearson, 2015.
