Because the seventh grade, I’ve listened to American-born, native English-speaking Spanish lecturers describe their metamorphosis after touring overseas to Spain for his or her junior or senior 12 months of school. Whereas finding out in Spain might be its personal reward, I need an equal alternative to check all of the dialects of Spanish in Hispanic international locations within the Americas, not simply Castilian Spanish, the dialect particular to Spain that has occupied the forefront of my Spanish schooling.
The dialects in Spanish-speaking international locations within the Americas have their very own wealthy grammar and vocabulary that differs from that of Castilian Spanish, and finding out overseas in these locations is really the one solution to totally grasp these accents and their nuanced grammar. However GW’s inconsistent and at instances patronizing commercial of examine overseas packages in Spanish-speaking international locations within the Americas denies its college students the chance to complement themselves via examine overseas packages in these international locations.
GW continues to advertise its examine overseas packages all through all of Spain, however it neglects to offer its Spanish examine overseas packages within the Americas the identical consideration. The Workplace for Examine Overseas, or OSA, has an obligation to make sure that all of its packages are equally enriching and pretty marketed. If GW really needs to offer huge cultural and language studying alternatives to its college students, OSA should increase its choices in Spanish-speaking international locations within the Americas and cease perpetuating stereotypes about these international locations via its promoting methods.
Excluding medical and graduate packages, GW presents six long-term examine overseas packages in Spain and a combined 12 examine overseas packages all through Hispanic international locations within the Americas. However GW’s examine overseas packages in Spain generally overshadow the remainder within the Western Hemisphere. Throughout GW’s digital examine overseas honest this September, OSA held information sessions on packages in Seville, Madrid, Barcelona and Pamplona – all cities positioned in Spain. For Spanish-speaking international locations within the Americas, OSA solely held virtual information sessions for one program in Chile and one in Colombia, leaving 10 different packages unmentioned. Accessibility to details about Spanish examine overseas packages and equal illustration of the varied overseas alternatives in Spanish-speaking international locations is crucial to the place college students determine to journey and the training experiences they obtain.
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The distinction between how the OSA describes packages in Spain and people within the Americas is much more jarring. Whereas each Madrid and Chile are a part of GW’s featured examine overseas packages, GW’s Madrid program abstract discusses the educational curriculum and its partnership with Madrid’s “premier nationwide college.” However the abstract for Chile’s examine overseas program references how the nation is “starting to play an vital position” globally and supplies a possibility to expertise each “political and cultural challenges.” Whereas OSA praises the distinguished tutorial expertise provided in Madrid, it depicts Chile via a distant lens, encouraging potential learners to deal with them and their nation as basically completely different from GW and its college students. This distinction is each unfair and unfaithful.
The restricted alternatives for college students to check Spanish in South America possible stems from the widespread however incorrect perception that the area is unsafe. This false impression can push GW college students away from Spanish-speaking international locations within the Americas and additional compound the OSA’s imbalance between overseas packages in Spain and people within the Americas. The U.S. State Division issues journey advisories for international locations on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 signifying that vacationers ought to take regular precautions and 4 which means U.S. residents shouldn’t journey there. Each nation in South America the place a GW Examine Overseas program relies is ranked as a 1 or 2. European international locations like Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK presently sit on the similar stage 2 threat advisory for journey. To not point out, D.C. has higher crime charges than the cities of Medellín and Cartagena in Colombia and Santiago, Chile.
By broadly promoting and glorifying its examine overseas packages in Spain via OSA, GW’s Spanish language curriculum pushes college students down one specific path of Spanish-language schooling and Castilian Spanish, the Spanish dialect spoken in Spain. The dialect is often regarded because the “purest” type of the language. The Real Academia Española, the authority on Spanish language and grammar, advertises its dictionaries as “offering the linguistic norms” of the language in accordance with Castilian Spanish. The Actual Academia Española promotes a Eurocentric view of the Spanish language as a complete, sidestepping the cultural enrichment of dialectal variations in Spanish talking international locations within the Americas. The extra GW advertises overseas packages in Spain, the extra college students favor studying the Castilian Spanish dialect and embody that Eurocentric perspective of the Spanish language. The Spanish language doesn’t belong solely to Spain, and GW wants to assist promote this understanding via an equal commercial of its Spanish language trade packages.
GW’s Workplace for Examine Overseas should commit itself to a multicultural perspective and promote all examine overseas alternatives on an equal footing. Its present bias in favor of Spain and subsequent patronizing angle towards dialects of Spanish within the Americas and tradition are unacceptable. After disregarding them for thus lengthy, the workplace must overview its method to promoting examine overseas packages in Central and South America and extra broadly promote the alternatives college students have to check overseas in these international locations.
Paige Baratta, a freshman finding out political science, is an opinions author.
This text appeared within the November 14, 2022 issue of the Hatchet.
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