About the Course
ILAC 10SC
Prerequisites: SPANLANG 3 or equivalent
Wouldn’t it be great if you could quickly increase your Spanish proficiency through an intensive immersion experience right here at Stanford? Wouldn’t you love to gain the cultural and historical knowledge necessary to begin taking film, literature, and culture courses generally reserved for advanced students? This intensive Spanish immersion course is designed to help students who have completed a year of Spanish to move forward quickly toward greater linguistic and cultural competence.
After a year of Spanish, students tend to be able to handle straightforward interactions related to basic needs and personal information, but they generally lack the ability to handle more abstract discussions or to combine short utterances into longer presentations of their ideas. Most students likewise have little knowledge of the rich and complex history that surrounds the Spanish language or the central role that Spanish has played in the cultural, artistic, and political life of California.
In this course, a team of experienced instructors will help students improve their Spanish through intensive lessons that incorporate film, literature, and social issues. Through a focused discussion of the themes of immigration and democracy in Latin America, Spain, and the United States, as well as excursions and guest lectures by Stanford faculty and community leaders, this course will immerse students in Spanish and help them to gain advanced proficiency much more quickly.
Click here to see a video about this course
Instructor Bios
Jorge Rufinelli has published 20 books of literary and cultural criticism and more than 500 articles, critical notes, and reviews in journals throughout the world. He is a recognized authority on Onetti, García Márquez, Juan Rulfo, and Latin American literary history. During the 90s his work centered on Latin American cinema; in 1993 he filmed a documentary on Augusto Monterroso for which he interviewed major Mexican writers and critics. He is compiling the first Encyclopedia of Latin American Cinema, for which he has written around 2,000 articles on feature films from and about Latin America. His current work also includes a book of interpretation and survey of the most recent Spanish-American prose published by writers born after 1968, a project that analyzes the work, marketing, and reception of more than 50 authors (Ana Solari, Milagros Socorro, Karla Suarez, Mayra Santos, David Toscana, Rodrigo Fresan, Juan Forn, Martin Kohan, and Jorge Vopli, among others). His teaching centers on the intersection of the interests above and cultural politics.
Alice "Ali" Miano ccoordinates the Spanish Language Program at Stanford University, where she’s taught as a lecturer in Spanish since 1991. In 1997, she received the Gores Award, Stanford’s highest recognition for excellence in teaching. She holds a Ph.D. in Education, specializing in language, literacy, society, and culture, from UC Berkeley. Ali studies immigrants in the United States and their interactions with U.S. school systems. Related research interests include native Spanish language literacy in the U.S., adult literacy, bilingualism, biliteracy, and second language acquisition. Within the study of second language learning, Ali is interested in heritage and non-native students' acquisition of presentational (academic and professional) language. Ali is a certified trainer and tester in the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and holds several other oral and written assessment certifications in Spanish and English through ACTFL.
Vivian Brates is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she attended the University of Buenos Aires. She received an M.A. from Georgetown University in Latin American Studies, with a focus in economic development, and previously an M.A. degree from UC Santa Barbara in Spanish and Latin American literature. She worked for several years as an international consultant in Washington D.C. in roles such as Human Rights Observer (with the United Nations/OAS International Civilian Mission in Haiti), Election Monitor (Haiti, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Guatemala), advocate, and lobbyist. She has volunteered for the International Red Cross, more recently for the Prison University Program teaching Spanish at San Quentin Prison, and for the International Institute of the Bay Area preparing immigrants for the citizenship exam. In addition to her professional and volunteer pursuits, she enjoys traveling with her husband and teenage children, watching movies and plays, and swimming.
