UF Faculty Department College
Andrea Villa Ruiz Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Partner Faculty Department Partner Institution
Eva Pelayo Sañudo Philology Universidad de Cantabria
Title:
Tandem Program (English-Spanish)
Project Description:

The objective is for the students of these universities to carry out a series of video calls in order to carry out conversations in English and Spanish, or tandems, on topics previously selected by the professors who collaborate on the project creation.

This modality of virtual exchange is an opportunity for linguistic immersion as a complement to academic instruction in the classroom. In particular, it supports the development of oral skills (speaking and listening) in an individualized and supervised manner, ensuring that each student participates and, therefore, has the opportunity to put what they have learned into practice. In this sense, the project makes it possible to integrate flipped classroom, collaborative Learning, and peer learning methodologies, which are essential to complement the student-teacher relationship of unidirectional instruction that is more common in a formal learning context.

Throughout the semester there will be a weekly session, where time will be distributed equally: for example, a 30-minute conversation in English, in which the students from Cantabria will be the learners and the University of Florida students the guides (instructors), and 30 minutes in Spanish, in which the these roles will be reversed.

Learning Outcomes:
Participating Countries:
Spain
Number of Participants:
81 UF students and 53 students from partner institution
Discipline:
World Languages
UF Course Code & Name:
SPN 3300 - Grammar and Composition I
Project Duration:
8 weeks
Activity Type(s):
Student-to-Student Dialogue
Student-to-Student Project
Time allotted to each activity:
Synchronous Activities: 8 hours
Individual Work: 8 hours
Technology Tools:
Videoconference: Teams
Learning Management Systems: Canvas
Collaborative Authoring Platforms: Google Forms, Google Docs
Sequence of Activities:
  1. Icebreakers: Use photography and visuals to explore culture
  2. Initial activity: Create a timeline about the topic University life and Career Choices so that students explain their background and future academic and professional goals to each other
  3. Collaborative project: Creating an advertising campaign for a product/service that they would like to sell in Spain and in the U.S.

Sequence of Activities:
OPEN FILE