Spanish and Portuguese classes to receive new curriculum

Students enrolled in Spanish and Portuguese language classes will meet just two days a week starting in the fall, despite some concerns from teaching assistants in the department.

Currently, Spanish 1-3 classes meet five days a week, while Spanish 4-5 and Portuguese classes meet four days a week. When class days are reduced in fall, time spent in the classroom for students in the language classes will decrease by an hour or two per week, depending on the language level.

At the same time, the amount of required time for online coursework will increase to two hours per week, said Juliet Falce-Robinson, the director of the language program in the department of Spanish and Portuguese.

The goal of this department-wide change is to follow guidelines set out by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, which suggests that students should meet fewer times for longer periods and spend more time outside the classroom on homework, Falce-Robinson said. Many other schools are moving toward this model, called hybridization, including Georgetown and Harvard, according to the department guide.

There will be no significant changes in department spending because of the change, Falce-Robinson said. Along with the schedule changes, students taking Spanish 1-3 in the fall will have to buy a new textbook because the department’s rights to the current textbook expired in fall 2013 and the publisher only granted UCLA two more quarters to use the books, Falce-Robinson said. The new textbooks cost more than $100 when bought new, though the previous textbooks bought new were generally more expensive.

Tenured faculty in the department of Spanish and Portuguese voted unanimously to make the changes earlier this year, Falce-Robinson said. None of the faculty members involved in the vote directly teach undergraduate language courses such as Spanish 1-5 or Portuguese, said Zeke Trautenberg, a Spanish teaching assistant.

Though the measure was passed without opposition, some teaching assistants in the department disagree with the change and think that it will cause the quality of teaching for these classes to decline.

Many teaching assistants found out about the changes after they had been voted on, said Ian Romain, the teaching assistant coordinator for the department.

Trautenberg said he thinks that American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages curriculum recommendations do not fit the UCLA student body and the current structure of Spanish and Portuguese classes. Spanish classes at UCLA have 22-25 students and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages recommends a maximum of 15 students per class for any language level, he said.

Romain said some TAs in the department have expressed concerns about the change, while others have voiced support for it.

“One group (of TAs) is concerned that a reduction in class hours will lead to a reduction in quality, while another (group) eagerly awaits more time for research and less time spent on grading and class preparation,” Romain said.

He said he thinks that the hybridization model for classes will improve teaching at UCLA because more grading of individual online assignments and quizzes will be done by the online software and less of the work will fall on TAs.

Some students in Spanish classes said they think their current 50 minutes of class per day is not always effective.

“If you show up 10 minutes late, you’ve missed 20 percent of the class,” said Anya Gosine, a third-year international developmental studies student currently in Spanish 5.

Gosine added that she thinks that the new model for classes is not perfect, and said she can foresee problems with the transition to online coursework. For instance, when someone’s laptop breaks down or when a student doesn’t have reliable access to the internet, they may not be able to complete coursework in a timely manner, Gosine said.

The department will track the changes beginning this fall over the next year and onward, making future changes accordingly.