Introduction

Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed speaks to the necessary changes in education in order to promote a student-driven classroom experience that empowers students to become fully integrated members of society. The role of teachers is not to regulate the way the world enters the students, but rather to help regulate the way the students enter the world (Freire, 1970, p.76). Teachers are not depositors of knowledge and information into students’ minds, but rather are the coaches and facilitators of students’ meaningful engagement with society. By teaching Bloom’s Taxonomy higher-order thinking skills by which the target language becomes a tool for application, analysis, evaluation, and creation, world-langauge teachers begin to prepare students to become contributing members of society (Armstrong). The ultimate goal of this sort of education is the development of students who question the world they live in, identify ways to improve it, and have a lasting positive effect on their communities and society. In essence, we help students become advocates for themselves and others. 

Advocacy is a high-level skill that requires students to have knowledge of both global issues and methods of communicating about those issues in both informative and persuasive modes of communication. Students in my Spanish classes work to develop these skills throughout each of our units as we study different global challenges and methods of approaching those challenges effectively in Spanish. However, our academic goal is to develop student communicative proficiency in Spanish through any activities we do in class. How can we develop student advocacy while maintaining our focus on language acquisition? 

In this section of my portfolio, I will demonstrate how students work both collaboratively and independently to develop awareness of key global issues, while also strengthening appropriate communication skills to become advocates. However, I will focus the evidence in this section on video demonstrations of student reflections on their learning as well as student work projects. Throughout the videos below, you will see...
  • students developing critical consciousness of the real world issues they face in their lives and communities.
  • students developing knowledge of key language structures to advocate for themselves and others. 
  • students practicing proficiency skills related to forming and defending opinions in Spanish.
  • students reflecting on the value of their learning toward the aforementioned advocacy goals.  

Before jumping into the student work and reflections, let's see what students are saying about their advocacy skills in Spanish class regarding achieving academic success. Read the student quotes below as they describe their work toward becoming advocates for themselves and others! 
"The work in this class has helped me to become a better self-advocate in many ways. I've come to realize that unlike other classes we have more freedom on our assignments. If I want to get a better grade, I'll get creative and do better in order to help myself. This work has helped me to realize the importance of learning a different language. The work in this class has helped me to be a better self-advocate by inspiring me to learn the language more effectively and to hold my work to a higher standard than before." (11th grade student, Spanish 3)
"My work in Spanish class has helped me advocate for others because when people at my table in Spanish need help I try my best to support them and help them find a solution. I also do this in my other classes because I am getting used to doing this in Spanish." (9th grade student, Spanish 2)

Student Work Samples

​Forming Opinions about Public Transportation 

In the following video work sample, I work with students in their third year of Spanish instruction in a small-group instructional setting to teaching an important communication skills: giving a recommendation and explaining the reasoning behind it. In this video, I work with one small group to analyze their thinking around the value of public transportation. Students start by writing recommendations to community members to utilize public transportation, practicing a key language structure in making suggestions in Spanish: the present subjunctive. Once students demonstrate comprehension of that, I instruct students to write a list of 5 recommendations to local government officials on possible improvements to the bus and train system in our community. 

At the end of the video, I highlight a few small-group presentations as students demonstrate their ability to make recommendations in Spanish and explain their reasoning using a combination of the indicative and subjunctive mood. This is an extension of students' advocacy skills of forming and defending an opinion. Through their work, students develop awareness of possible challenges within our public transportation system, connecting to previous learning on ways students can help the environment by reducing auto emissions. Through collaboration and creative problem solving, students share possible solutions to obstacles to the efficacy of public transportation. 

An area of growth that I identified in this work sample is in student public speaking skills. This is one of the very first times students gave presentations in front of peers, and there is a variety of strengths and growth areas regarding speaking in front of groups. Of the growth areas, I am currently working to help students use a more clear and audible tone when speaking, make eye contact with audience members, and more effectively use inflections when persuading in oral language.

Comparing and Contrasting Food

In this video of students in their second year of Spanish instruction, students complete a collaborative task based on their previous learning of language structures to compare and contrast nouns. This communicative language task provides learners with the opportunity to learn from one another, as students are placed in heterogenous groups in which heritage speakers of Spanish work with non-heritage speakers to create small-group oral presentations. 

Students develop their oral presentational communication in this project requiring them to compare and contrast foods in Spanish. Students use two authentic texts--menus from restaurants in Latin America--to identify foods of interest and compare their ingredients. Then, students explain the reasons for which one restaurant is better than the other. Students were required to begin exploring the health aspect of their choices in this project as a pathway to start developing communication skills in Spanish to describe healthy choices. Being able to make comparisons in Spanish is a key language structure in advocacy, especially as students are faced with many choices in the foods they eat. My students frequent restaurants and markets in which the language of exchange is Spanish; thus, they must be equipped with language skills to ask and answer questions about the similarities and differences between products affecting their health.

Based on student performance in this presentation, I notice that vowel pronunciation in Spanish and fluidity in presentational speaking are two key areas of growth. Non-heritage speakers at this level are just beginning to develop the ability to synthesize alphabetical principle (the awareness of the ways that letters translate into sounds in Spanish as opposed to English) and more complex syntax is spoken language. However, heritage speakers of Spanish still rely heavily upon written words when presenting orally. It is important that students move away from using long-sentence notes when speaking publicly and begin to rely on their memories and their spontaneous language production skills. 

Student Reflections

Students are often the best judges of their own growth and learning. Based on our work in the first two units of the school year, I asked students to volunteer to answer three questions regarding our work together thus far in the year. I did not give students time to prepare an answer, as I wanted their honest opinions. In the following video, students from multiple grade levels and language proficiencies in Spanish reflect on the ways in which their work in Spanish class has led to their development into advocates for themselves and others. The three questions to which they respond are as follows: 
  1. What global issues have you studied in Spanish class?
  2. How have you learned to form and defend an opinion in Spanish?
  3. How has your learning helped you become an advocate for yourself and others? 
Students' reflections in this video demonstrate the ways that students are taking action in their own lives and educations as a result of the work and self-reflection they complete in Spanish class. Students discuss how they use their new language skills to push others to make globally conscious decisions; further, they describe ways that they are making better health-related decisions in their own lives based upon their realizations in Spanish class. Because of these and other student reflections, I am inspired to continue to work hard to develop meaningful lessons and units of study that prepare students not only to use Spanish in their own lives and communities, but also to become active global citizens. 
Note on Student Work and Images: All videos, images, and sample student work has been used with the permission from parents. I have written permission to use the names of faces of students included in this portfolio. 

Conclusion 

Zeke Cohen is the Executive Direction of The Intersection, an organization whose mission is to, “…transform high school students from underserved areas into leaders with the skills to go to and through college, to engage in civic action, and to articulate and solve challenges facing themselves and their communities” (Our Mission). This organization works with students to help them become emboldened leaders and activists within the inner-city communities of Baltimore, Maryland who seek to further demolish discrimination and disempowerment of students based on race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. For me, this organization’s mission has an important application in my classroom regarding the idea of power. Cohen explains in a video introduction to the organization’s website that, “Power is about the ability to act, and to do for yourself and others. Our kids have the power in them. It’s not about us giving it to them; it’s about them finding it within themselves” (Baltimore Intersection). My mission in my Spanish-language instruction is to help students find the power within themselves to use Spanish to improve their communities and the larger society. I cannot do this by teaching language alone, nor can I do this by depositing cultural knowledge. Rather, I must constantly develop lessons and seek resources that increase students’ exposure to, and interaction with, language as it is used outside of the classroom. To develop meaningful and lasting student advocacy, I must help my learners find their own voice, and then teach them how to use it to think critically, interact responsibly, and express themselves effectively.