Spanish for agriculture students program expanded

Spanish for agriculture students program expanded

Students work with children at Mexican orphanage.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- About eight years ago, one semester of Spanish was all that was required for agricultural students. Now an entire program exists: Spanish for the Agriculture Industry, which includes a three-course basic language sequence.

Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences noticed a need for Spanish education with a greater focus on agriculture, and so it collaborated with the university's College of Liberal Arts to create the program.

And now it is blossoming, with more than 500 students and faculty having participated in the first level of the sequence and approximately 100 students in the second and third level, of which 33 have participated in a one-month immersion experience in Mexico.

That visit south of the border involves studying Spanish, living with Mexican families, learning about agriculture in Mexico and doing agricultural-service projects at the orphanage of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos in Miacatlan, Mexico.

"This college is unique in the way it has supported the development of this program," said Alex Borys, coordinator of Spanish for the Agriculture Industry. "The program is a response to a need for better preparation and qualification of our students as they seek jobs in agriculture-related industries.

"Students are taking an interest in this program because basic Spanish skills are important for job placement," he added. "Due to the dependence on the Hispanic workforce that exists in the agriculture industry, we are trying to train students to understand Spanish in agriculture at both a management and a worker level."

The purpose of the program is not to make ag sciences students fluent in Spanish, but simply to provide them with language education at the intermediate level, Borys noted. "We hope to meet the needs of our students, which include understanding the culture, giving instructions in Spanish and developing relationships with Hispanic workers."

The program, which is open only to majors in the College of Agricultural Sciences, was originally designed as a one-semester course for students who had never studied Spanish. However, upon request, it was expanded to further develop the language sequence as well as to include an immersion experience.

Now, there are students in various ag sciences majors who are minoring in Spanish and participating in the immersion program to earn independent study credits toward the Spanish minor.

"This immersion experience is the capstone of the program. It not only involves further development of the students' language proficiency but also includes a service-experiential learning experience," Borys said.

During the four-week Spanish for the Agriculture Industries immersion program, students stay with a Mexican family, take classes, visit major agriculture-related corporations and cultural and historical sites, and do work at an in-service orphanage.

"Students were requesting more than Spanish 105 and wanted international experience," he said. "And students were very instrumental in creating the course.

"I have to come up with all my own materials, my own dictionary," he said. "The whole course evolved by asking my students, 'What is it that you want to do?'"