Dr. Rosa Tezanos-Pinto and Dr. Judith Carlstrand, both from the Program in Spanish at IU Indianapolis, are creating programs designed to raise student awareness and ability to work with people with multicultural perspectives. They have developed strategies that link research in pragmatics with pedagogy for the explicit instruction of real-world intercultural communication skills.
Three separate projects include: modules for the Global Learning Toolkit, recently shared with IU Indianapolis professors of all disciplines at the 2024 Global Learning Symposium; Virtual Global Exchanges between their students and students in two major universities in Mexico; and recent presentations at the 22nd International conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning at IU Bloomington, and at the 2024 Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association. More details about these cutting edge programs follow below!
Global Toolkit Modules: The two Spanish professors created activities and resources for the Global Learning Toolkit, designed and sponsored by the Office of International Affairs. These modules are available to professors of all disciplines to use in internationalizing the curriculum (Click here to download the modules). Dr. Tezanos-Pinto and Dr. Carlstrand spoke at the Global Learning Symposium on September 27th to introduce the pragmatic concepts that form the basis for the activities in their Global Toolkit.
Virtual Global Exchanges: Dr. Tezanos-Pinto and Dr. Carlstrand, both 2024 Virtual Global Learning Fellows, are currently directing Virtual Global Exchanges. Dr. Tezanos-Pinto’s students in two classes, Spanish Writing I and Writing Spanish for Heritage Speakers, are collaborating with students at the University of Monterrey, Mexico. Dr. Carlstrand’s students in the asynchronous course, Spanish for Healthcare Personnel, have met several times this semester with medical and nursing students at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico to create videos in which they simulate intercultural medical consultations. The project features pragmatic skills: listening for awareness of multicultural perspectives and skillfully conducting intercultural medical conversations. In the photo below, Students in S319, Spanish for Healthcare Personnel, wrote and produced videos with medical students at the University of Guadalajara.
Dissemination: On November 1, Dr. Carlstrand presented “Paths to Creating Intercultural Metapragmatic Awareness in Healthcare Professionals” at the 22nd International conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning at IU Bloomington. Dr. Carlstrand and her co-presenter, Alejandra Aguilar Perez, Online Instructional Designer with UITS, explained their innovative use of the latest technology for asynchronous courses with bilingual students in the medical field. Dr. Carlstrand states, “One barrier to equitable medical care in our country is the lack of trust between healthcare providers, who work from the scientific perspective of western medicine, and their patients, who may bring alternative perspectives into healthcare routines.” Dr. Tezanos-Pinto gave a talk, “Theories and Practices / College Level,” at the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association on November 2. She explained how she integrates Virtual Global Learning, AI, and Attrition Awareness into her pedagogy. For the virtual learning section, her IU Indianapolis students met for several weeks with their counterparts at Tecnológico de Monterrey (Monterrey, Mexico). Using Zoom, Padlet, and podcasts, the students in both countries discussed multiple cultural topics including Geert Hoftede’s Dimensions of Culture: and country comparison tools.