Innovations:
Motivating further study
First year Spanish courses do not exist in a vacuum, but form an important part of a full curriculum. Thus a first year program must serve the larger goal of making students fluent in Spanish and effective cross-cultural communicators. If students stop studying Spanish when they complete their language requirement, these goals are never met. Thus an effective Spanish curriculum must set as its primary goal student retention in the larger Spanish program. Ritmos achieves this by presenting useful and interesting cultural knowledge, providing useful and fun class activities, and giving students useful intercultural skills that they can apply immediately.
An important way to achieve proficiency in any language is study abroad. Thus one of the goals of Ritmos is to equip and recruit students for just such an educational experience. We achieve this by exposing students to authentic language from the very beginning, and by establishing a broad base of cultural knowledge so that learners feel comfortable communicating with people from the target cultures.
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