AATSP Conference 2023 (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) in Salamanca, Spain

AATSP Conference 2023 (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) in Salamanca, Spain

Grant:
Lecturers' Professional Development Fund (LPDF)
Academic Year:
2022 - 2023 (June 1, 2022 through May 31, 2023)
Funding Requested:
$2,000.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
forrestk
Overview of the Project:
I wish to attend the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Annual Conference (June 26-June 29) in  Segovia, Spain. The principal reasons I wish to attend are to network with other educators in my field, to stay abreast of advances in the field of SLA, to learn more tech tools that I may be able to incorporate in my classes, and to explore this year's theme of Culture and Communication. I am especially interested in learning new ways to diversify my curriculum and to talk about real world issues like sustainability. This information will be beneficial to my Spanish Special Topics course on the environment.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

My objective was to attend the 105th AATSP (American Association of Spanish and Portuguese) conference in Salamanca, Spain from June 26-29 2003 which took place at the University of Salamanca. The theme of this conference was Nuevos horizontes para la comunicación y la cultura (New horizons for communication and culture). I hoped to network and to learn about the latest pedagogical approaches in the field of secondary language acquisition.

Project Achievements:

Since AATSP was co-conferencing with Congreso Internacional del Español: Español para todos and NABE (National Association of Bilingual Education), this was an enormous conference with over 1,000 attendees and 400+ sessions to choose from. I thoroughly enjoyed being back in Spain as it had been over 30 years since I studied abroad in Valencia. Some of the highlights of my time there were:

1) Networking at events such as the AATSP Conference Travel Award Reception and the Presidential Reception. It was wonderful to run into several colleagues that I had worked with previously and to meet some new friends.

2) Attending the Higher Education Town Hall to share ideas about teaching and learning Spanish, specifically with colleagues in Higher Ed. 

3) Attending guided walking tours of the beautiful city of Salamanca (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988) and learning about its magnificent history.

4) Attending a Blockbuster Film Masterclass: Mientras dure la guerra with a guest lecture by Professor D. Fernando Rodríguez La Fuente

5) Attended many, many sessions including current topics such as non-binary/gender inclusivity, Spanish for Heritage speakers, Film, Target tasks as summative assessment,  and many more.

6) Attended a 4-hour workshop on using film in Spanish class sponsored by Platino Educa.

7) I hope to attend more conferences in the future!

I got so many excellent ideas for teaching Spanish from this conference, and one in particular led me to apply for another grant when I returned home in the hopes of carrying out the project in Fall 2023.

 

 

Continuation:
This project is not continuing beyond the grant period.
Dissemination:
I don't have any formal plans to disseminate this project's activities, however I plan to share informally what I have learned with my colleagues in my teaching cohort in RLL.
Advice to your Colleagues:
I had never been to an AATSP conference so I made sure to watch the orientation video, download the conference App, and pick up the printed program upon arriving. All of these things helped me to select which sessions I wanted to attend ahead of time, which was very helpful given the large volume of possible sessions and the fact that they took place in three different buildings. I took the program with me everywhere because on two occasions the presenter didn't arrive (I assume those sessions were canceled but we weren't notified) and I had to decide on a different session at the last minute.

Also, there were certain activities that filled up quickly (excursions, walking tours, workshops). The website indicated that there was plenty of room and so I delayed registering for some of these supplementary events. The website was not up-to-date, however, and so I recommend reading all of the conference-related emails and signing up right away for any events that interest you.
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