About

How can these video clips be used?

This platform serves as an Open Educational Resources (OER) with many potential uses to learners, instructors, and the general public. Some possible uses include listening and/or reading comprehension practice, cultural reflection, and discussion in the language classroom. The Instructor Resources page contains pedagogical suggestions that we hope are useful or inspire new ideas for integrating these stories into your curriculum.

Join us in exploring these unique stories that highlight the cultural tapestry that makes our community thrive!

If you have any comments or suggestions, please share them on the Comments page. Also, please let us know how you are using these resources (e.g. listening comprehension practice, text analysis, cultural discussions, etc.) for data collection purposes.

Project background

The content of this website is the result of a professional development leave awarded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale University. The project aimed to gather a collection of narratives by members of the Spanish-speaking community at the university to increase the visibility of this population on campus, celebrate the Spanish language, and pay tribute to the many Hispanic cultures represented in this vibrant community and beyond.

Role of the university

Chart 1: Role in the university

The interviews were conducted with twelve individuals from eight different countries: Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Spain, USA, and Venezuela. Two participants are of Puerto Rican/Jamaican and Italian ancestry, respectively. The participants include undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, staff members, and one senior administrator (see Chart 1); they represent different language profiles, including six participants being native speakers of Spanish, three learners of Spanish, two bilingual speakers (Spanish and English), and one heritage speaker (see Chart 2). 

Language profile

Chart 2: Language profile

The short videos (63 clips) present testimonials of resilience, overcoming challenges, longing, joy, family memories, interests, and travels, among other topics. With features such as playback speed controls, captions in both Spanish and English, and transcripts, we see great potential for these clips to be used as pedagogical resource in the language classroom. Some transcripts show highlighted parts for linguistic analysis of the written oral discourse. 

This repository of videos shows the diversity of this community at Yale. All are welcome to listen, watch, and enjoy!