SPAN 405: Spanish for Health Professionals
| Course Home Page | Blackboard | Instructor's E-mail |
| Overview | Course Goals | Course Materials |
| Course Components | Assignments and Exams | Grading |
| Honor Code | Helpful Hints | Course Mechanics |
| Schedule | ||
Overview
According to the 2000 census, Latinos now constitute the largest minority population in the United States. Too few health care providers speak Spanish, have access to interpreters, or understand Latino cultural norms to adequately treat these new immigrants. As a result, Latino immigrants often receive substandard care, jeopardizing both their health and the health of those around them.
To address this critical communication need, an interdisciplinary team at UNC-Chapel Hill developed ¡A su salud!, a set of intermediate Spanish materials designed specifically for working health professionals and students in the health professions. Since health care professionals and students frequently do not have the time or the opportunity to attend a traditional Spanish class, the materials were created to be used at a distance. As a student using ¡A su salud!, you will learn not only health-related vocabulary and intermediate grammar, but also cultural concepts set in a health context.
Rather than merely present you with endless lists of medical phrases and vocabulary words, ¡A su salud! is centered on an original telenovela-style health drama. Filmed in North and South Carolina, the drama is set in a Latino-run health clinic and features stories about the staff members and the patients and clients they serve. Professional actors from all over the Spanish-speaking world demonstrate the varied accents and cultures of Latin America. All of the grammar and vocabulary exercises in ¡A su salud! relate to the drama, thus providing a strong contextual background for class discussions.
Note: An intermediate student has usually taken the equivalent of two semesters of college-level Spanish and has some familiarity with the basic grammar of the language.
Important: If you have a hearing or visual impairment, please contact the course author, Elizabeth Ely Tolman. There is an online version of the DVD that complies with ADA standards.
Course Goals
The primary goal of this course is to improve your communication skills in Spanish so that you will be a better health care provider to your current and future patients and clients. Communication in a health care setting involves much more than just speaking a common language, however. In order to provide adequate care, you must also understand your patients' and clients' culture and their reactions to receiving health care. As such, we will focus on improving your aural and oral communication skills within the context of Latino immigrant culture in health care settings.
This course has been specifically designed to meet the needs of working health care professionals and students in the health professions. It is one of the first university courses anywhere in the country to interweave culture, language instruction, and health care material. As such, you will be performing a variety of exercises and activities designed to strengthen each of these areas.
Course Materials
Required Materials
¡A su salud! (set): Spanish for Health Professionals by Christine Cotton, Elizabeth Tolman, and Julia Mack (2004).
The set includes two DVDs, a CD-ROM, and a workbook. It can be obtained from Friday Center Books & Gifts at the Friday Center in person, by ordering online, or by printing and mailing the book order form.
Computer Compatibility with Required Materials
If you did not verify that your computer is capable of installing and playing the course materials before enrolling and purchasing the materials, please do the following now:
- Make sure that your computer (not your television) has a DVD drive.
- Check the compatibility of your computer with the software. On the ¡A su salud! technical support page, click on the link entitled “¡A su salud! Computer Compatibility Utility (also known as The Sniffer).” If you need to download a program, the “Sniffer” will tell you how to do it. If you have any problems, or any doubts about your computer's ability to run the DVD after using the Sniffer, contact Yale's technical support listed on the same page.
Recommended Optional Text
You should have a good Spanish/English, English/Spanish dictionary.
Course Components
There are fifteen lessons, three unit tests, and a final exam.
Each lesson has several types of assignment:
- reading assignments
- viewing assignments from the DVDs
- phone conversations, both with the instructor and with a “conversation partner”
- a discussion forum assignment
- a written assignment.
Most students can expect to spend a minimum of three to five hours a week doing the required assignments for each lesson. The assignments are discussed in more detail below.
Assignments and Exams
Instructor Phone Conversations
Since it is vital that you be able to speak with your clients and patients, 35 percent of your grade is based on the conversations in Spanish you have with your instructor and conversation partner. Each week (except holiday weeks) you will call your instructor at a predetermined time for a fifteen-minute conversation. We'll create the schedule the first week of class. The conversation topics will be available to you in advance so that you will have a chance to prepare any vocabulary or grammatical structures that you feel appropriate to the subject. Your grade will be based on the following criteria:
- Preparedness—how well did you study the material?
- Comprehension and comprehensibility—do you understand your instructor and can your instructor understand you?
- Fluency and pace—do you speak at a normal pace with little hesitation?
- Vocabulary—do you use and comprehend each unit's vocabulary? Have you learned vocabulary specific to your discipline?
- Grammatical sophistication—do you attempt to use the grammatical structures featured in each unit and even to go beyond them? Do you speak with grammatical accuracy?
- Improvement—is your spoken Spanish improving from week to week?
You may skip up to three of the conversations with no penalty. If you realize that you will need to miss one, please tell your instructor in advance. You may want to plan your “skips” to coincide with breaks and holidays (see Schedule below). Due to the number of students in each section, you may not call at times other than those scheduled.
Conversation Partners
In addition to speaking with your instructor, you will also be speaking with a partner for fifteen minutes almost every week. (We'll choose partners the first week of class.) You may choose to speak on the phone, meet in person, or use webcams. It will be helpful to schedule a regular time each week to hold these “meetings.” The topics of these conversations will also be available to you in advance so that you can prepare for them. You must speak only in Spanish during these conversations. They conversations are designed to help you prepare for the ones you have with your instructor, so you may wish to schedule them for early in the week. After each of these conversations, both you and your partner will send a two- to three-line e-mail message to your instructor in Spanish about your conversation. As with the conversations you have with your instructor, you may skip three with your partner. You may want to plan your skips to coincide with University breaks and holidays (see Schedule below), but it's up to both partners.
Written Assignments
You will have a short written assignment each week, due Sunday by 10 pm via e-mail. A typical homework assignment might include exercises from the Cuaderno or DVD, or a short report on something you did with Hispanics in your field. You may skip three of these with no penalty.
NOTE: The exercises in the Cuaderno are ranked according to their difficulty. Exercises range from a “one-pepper” exercise ( 
), which is considered to be the easiest, to a “four-pepper” exercise ( 
), which is considered to be the most difficult. Since most of the exercises in the Cuaderno are not required for a grade, you should do only the ones that seem the most worthwhile to you. For example, if you remember how to form verbs in the preterit and feel that the one- and two-pepper exercises are too easy, skip to the ones that challenge you. On the other hand, if the one- and two-pepper exercises challenge you, don't feel you have to spend time on the more difficult ones.
Extra Assignments
As needed, your instructor will post additional assignments, such as readings, vocabulary exercises, or grammar exercises to the class Blackboard site.
Discussion Forums
Each week you will be required to respond to a question in the class discussion forum. These questions have been designed to challenge you to think not just about linguistic structures, but about culture and health care and how they interact with language. Respond thoughtfully and don't worry if you occasionally slip into English. Your grade in this section will be based more on the quality of what you say than how you say it. As with the conversations, you may skip three weeks of the forum with no penalty. Our discussion forums are held on Blackboard (see Course Mechanics for details).
Unit Exams
At the end of each of the first three Unidades, there will be a unit exam. These exams are primarily essay exams with a 60-minute time limit. They test whether you can apply the information you have been learning and use the grammatical structures and vocabulary studied in the previous units. The exams are administered on Blackboard. Each exam will become available on its scheduled date at 12 am, and will remain available for 24 hours to accommodate the varied schedules of health care professionals. You can take it at any time, but you are limited to 60 minutes, and must submit the exam before 11:59 pm. See Schedule for the exam dates.
Final Exam
The final exam for the course is the same as the unit exams in structure and objectives. The only difference is that the final is comprehensive and longer. You will have three hours to complete the final exam. The final exam is administered on Blackboard. See Schedule for the final exam date.
Grading
| Course Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| Instructor phone conversations | 35 percent |
| Conversation-partner conversations | 15 percent |
| Written assignments | 15 percent |
| Unit exams (average of three) | 20 percent |
| Final exam | 15 percent |
| Score | Undergraduate grade | Graduate grade |
|---|---|---|
| 92–100 | A | H pass |
| 90–91 | A– | |
| 88–89 | B+ | P pass |
| 82–87 | B | |
| 80–81 | B– | |
| 78–79 | C+ | L pass |
| 72–77 | C | |
| 70–71 | C– | |
| 68–69 | D+ | fail |
| 60–67 | D | |
| 0–59 | F |
Honor Code
Academic dishonesty in any form is unacceptable. Any breach in academic integrity, however small, strikes destructively at the University's life and work. Any form of cheating on assignments or exams is in violation of the honor code, and all exams should contain the written pledge: “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this exam.” Students may not work together or seek any help on homework assignments; “homework” includes any written contributions to the class electronic discussion forum. You must write your own assignments without help from friends, tutors, native speakers, or anyone else. It is in violation of the honor code for your assignments or any portion of them to be written by another person. It is also in violation of the honor code to copy, translate, paraphrase or transcribe your assignments or any portion of your assignments from any source. Review the University's honor code. If you have questions about what constitutes an honor violation in this course, please contact your instructor.
Helpful Hints
Taking an online language class may seem overwhelming at times. By keeping up with your assignments and communicating regularly with your instructor, you can succeed. In addition, you may find it helpful to review the following tips for successful language learning:
- Think about what kind of a learner you are. Do you learn best by seeing things or hearing them? Are you an experiential learner? Capitalize on your style. If you learn best by seeing things, for example, write down vocabulary words on flashcards. If, on the other hand, you need to practice things before you really remember them, take all opportunities to speak Spanish with your patients, neighbors, and friends.
- What kind of environment is most conducive to your learning? If you need a quiet room with a lot of light, try to make sure that you study under those conditions.
- Practice, practice, practice! No one gets it right all the time; don't be afraid to experiment and take risks. Spanish speakers are almost always delighted that you are trying to learn their language and are not offended by grammatical mistakes (just as you aren't if you are talking to someone whose first language is not English).
Course Mechanics
Blackboard
Some of your class components (discussion forums, exams, class listserv) are accessed through a software package called Blackboard, and you will need to log in to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.
There is a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the SPAN 405 link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left side of the screen labeled Announcements, Discussion Forum, and so on.
If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:
- If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.
- If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), go to the Onyen Web site.
- If you have your Onyen but can't log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
- If you can log in to Blackboard but can't find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
- If you can't locate a forum in Blackboard, contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center.
- If you have technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP).
¡A su salud! CD-ROM and DVDs
For technical assistance installing or running the CD-ROM and DVDs that are included with your course materials, see ¡A su salud! Technical Support Information. Telephone and e-mail support are available Monday through Friday, 9 am to 8 pm.
- ¡A su salud! Technical Support phone number: 919-644-1775
- ¡A su salud! Technical Support e-mail address: saludhelp@bladetechnology.com
Library Services and E-reserves
Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves. If you are using an off-campus computer, you will need to enter your Onyen to access the readings that are available through the e-reserve system. The UNC library staff is available to assist any students who have difficulties accessing online library resources. If you encounter difficulties, please report your problem by visiting this Web page for reporting a problem.
Using E-mail
All communication from your instructor will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC e-mail using Webmail. You can have your e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward e-mail” at the Onyen Web site.
If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses “blind carbon copy” to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than forwarding to Hotmail for this course.
Submitting Assignments
It is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to your instructor via e-mail. If he or she doesn't receive your work, you must have a duplicate copy, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment on time. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered.
Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to the instructor, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course.
Other Questions
If you have questions regarding
- the content of the course and your progress, contact your instructor. There is a link to the instructor's e-mail address at the top of every course Web page. Please include “SPAN 405” and your name in the subject line of your e-mail.
- bad links or other problems with this Web site, contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center.
- enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on, contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).
Schedule
We follow the approved UNC-Chapel Hill academic calendar. Our lessons run from Monday through Sunday. Pay close attention to the schedule and the calendar. Click on the link for each lesson to view the assignments for that week. Due dates and exam periods are stated in Eastern Time.
| Unidad 1a | ||
| Lesson 1 | ||
| Lesson 2 | ||
| Lesson 3 | ||
| Lesson 4 | ||
| Lesson 5 | Unidad 1a Exam available on Blackboard from 12 am to 11:59 pm Friday. | |
| Unidad 1b | ||
| Lesson 6 | ||
| Lesson 7 | ||
| Lesson 8 | Unidad 1b Exam available on Blackboard from 12 am to 11:59 pm Friday. |
|
| Unidad 2a | ||
| Lesson 9 | ||
| Lesson 10 | ||
| Lesson 11 | Unidad 2a Exam available on Blackboard from 12 am to 11:59 pm Friday. | |
| Unidad 2b | ||
| Lesson 12 | ||
| Lesson 13 | ||
| Lesson 14 | ||
| Lesson 15 | ||
| Prepare for the final exam. | ||
Final Exam available on Blackboard from 12 am to 11:59 pm Friday. |
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| Please complete a brief online course evaluation. We want to know if this course met your needs and expectations. | ||