Instructor Resources

Yale Spanish-Speaking Community

According to the Yale admissions office, 19% of the class of 2028 identify as Hispanic or Latino, which is a one-percentage point increase from the class of 2027, and the largest quota of Hispanic/Latino students in Yale’s history. As the presence of this demographic group increases, the repository of videos collected on this website aims to give voice to the experiences and perspectives of students, faculty, staff members, and administrators at the university.

Resources

The video corpus aims to highlight the life stories of Yale’s vibrant community, showcasing its Spanish-speaking population. These clips are intended to serve not only as useful tools for listening comprehension practice and linguistic analysis but also to spark reflection, conversation, and appreciation for Hispanic cultures. In addition, it serves as a resource for social insights into everyday life at Yale, study abroad programs (e.g. YSS in Bilbao, Spain; Quito, Ecuador; Comparative: Cities in the 21st Century), university resources, and events or groups such as La Casa Julia de Burgos, LIFFY, and Despierta Boricua.

How to Incorporate these Clips in the Language Classroom

Before deciding how to implement these videos, consider the learning outcomes, the relevance and engagement of the video content, and its length and complexity. Shorter videos may be more manageable for beginners, while more advanced students can handle longer, more complex content.

Some key elements to think about:

Topic: Are the students familiar with the topic? Is it appropriate for the group and the lesson goals? Is the content relevant to the class?
Language: Is the level of difficulty suitable? Can students understand the main ideas?
Length: Will you show the entire clip or just relevant parts?
Viewing: Will you assign the clip before class? Will students need to complete an assignment about the clip for class?

A. Before Watching the Video

Some ideas:

Have students anticipate the content based on the title.
Encourage students to prepare or think of relevant questions about the topic.
Use a warm-up activity to activate relevant vocabulary and ideas about the topic.

B. While Watching the Video

Some options:

Watch the video without captions.
Watch the video with captions (in Spanish).
Listen to the video recording without watching the video.

For focusing on non-verbal communication, turn off the sound and observe body language, facial expressions and gestures. Using the captions or the transcripts, you may analyze discourse markers, lexicon, structures, verb forms, agreement, etc. Captions are also available in English.

To encourage active viewing/listening it is a good strategy to provide focus questions prior to watching or listening to the clip. Pause as needed to clarify content and play the video a second time for deeper analysis on facts or to draw out opinions and questions from students.

Remember, you can adjust the playback speed feature to match the learning goals and proficiency level of the class.

C. After Watching the Video

After watching these videos, here are some practical ideas for integrating these clips, keeping in mind that adjustments should be made based on the proficiency level of the students (Novice, Intermediate, or Advanced), and the specific goals of the lesson. For example, in a lesson on music or cultural identity, the video clip titled “Identidad puertorriqueña” could be a valuable resource. The speaker discusses Bad Bunny’s message on preserving Puerto Rican culture. His short film “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” (I Should Have Taken More Photos) and related articles in Spanish in the New York Times or ¡billboard! would enrich the conversation.

These are some suggestions:

Skills	Tasks
Speaking	Students engage in class discussion about the theme(s) or stories in the interview. In-class role-play following the interview format. Debate of a relevant topic in the clip (e.g. migration, identity, cultural differences, the value of learning languages, etc.).
Writing	Students write questions based on the interview or create their own questions. They can compare their questions with ones generated by AI (using platforms like ChatGPT or Clarity). Students write an email to the interviewee with questions, comments, to share a personal experience, making comparisons, etc. Students write a summary identifying the main ideas using their own words (in Spanish). Students write a personal reflection. This could be shared in the MLS forum space ‘Discussions’ (Canvas). Students write a newspaper article on the interview they watched.
Listening comprehension	Students make a short list of the main ideas or the clip. Which one is the most relevant? Why? Students answer focus questions about the clip. Students observe and practice pronunciation and intonation. Note: captions are available both in Spanish and English.
Reading	Students observe and highlight vocabulary, grammatical structures and forms, or cultural references in the transcripts. Can be used to recognize cognates or infer meaning. Translation exercises. Note: The transcripts can be used as an authentic oral text by themselves, without needing to watch the video.
Culture	Videos can serve as warm-ups for cultural reflection or discussions, research, and/or to present a cultural aspect mentioned in the video (or related).
Other ideas	Project suggestion. Interview a Spanish speaker in the Yale/New Haven community on a particular topic or topics. It can be recorded or videotaped and the takeaways can be presented in class. Some of the videos can be used to reflect on the descriptors for various ACTFL levels. For example, which aspects of a particular video correspond to the advanced or superior level? Are there discourse markers and linking of phrases for cohesion? Do the language control and vocabulary allow to connect ideas into paragraph-length discourse?