\n\tBy SHANNON O. WELLS<\/p>\n
\n\tPitt\u2019s Keila Grinberg has long lamented the linguistic and cultural gaps that inhibit educational practice opportunities between Latin American and U.S. scholars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAn international partnership made possible by a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education \u2014\u00a0the largest grant CLAS has ever received \u2014\u00a0aims to bridge those gaps between Pittsburgh and two specific countries in Latin America.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat this will enable us to do is something that I have always wanted to do, which is facilitate the learning of English by Latin American-based scholars and teachers,\u201d said Grinberg, Latin American History professor in the Dietrich School\u2019s Department of History. \u201cThis is one of the main gaps (in) people training, and it also opens opportunities for career development, because they don’t speak English.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPitt\u2019s Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), for which Grinberg serves as director, is partnering with the English Language Institute (ELI), the\u00a0School of Education\u00a0and Dietrich School, among others on the\u00a0\u201cBridging Classrooms Across the Americas: A Reciprocal Language and Cultural Exchange Initiative.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tSupported through the federal\u00a0Mutual Education and Cultural Exchange (MECE) Program<\/a>, the CLAS team proposed a three-year reciprocal educator exchange initiative\u00a0that\u00a0engages 150 teachers from the U.S., Colombia and Brazil \u2014 50 per country \u2014 in\u00a0sustained professional development focused on language learning, intercultural collaboration and civic education.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt intends to\u00a0combine intensive language training, classroom collaboration and cultural immersion to strengthen teaching in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The grant abstract states the initiative\u2019s goal to\u00a0\u201cpromote, improve, and develop the study of modern foreign language training and area studies in United States schools, colleges, and universities by supporting visits and study in foreign countries by teachers and prospective teachers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe program provides opportunities for teachers and prospective teachers to improve their skill in languages and cultural knowledge of people in those countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe grant accommodates what Grinberg called \u201cvery intense English training\u201d for 50 Spanish teachers from Colombia and 50 from Brazil, who will visit Pittsburgh, and 50 English teachers from the U.S. who can travel to\u00a0Medell\u00edn\u00a0Colombia, or\u00a0Santar\u00e9m, Brazil, to learn either Spanish or Portuguese.\u00a0Medell\u00edn offers opportunities to explore urban innovation and educational transformation, while Santar\u00e9m provides a setting for learning about the Brazilian Amazon\u2019s cultures, communities and environment.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThose travels will also\u00a0include a component that is a history of the\u00a0place, so everyone will have 10 classes or sessions for us to teach history,\u201d Grinberg noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThose on the Pittsburgh end of the exchange will focus on U.S. history. \u201cAnd we’ll do the same in Colombia and in Brazil,\u201d she explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tParticipants will complete language instruction, cultural orientation and collaborative curriculum planning before traveling. As part of the approximate three-week international residencies, educators will participate in classroom observations, co-teaching, intensive language study, and engagement with local communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe program\u2019s third phase calls\u00a0for teachers to design lesson plans geared toward creating opportunities to exchange their knowledge, \u201cso we can advance the teaching and learning of languages across the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think this is really amazing that in this scenario we’ll be able to do that,\u201d Grinberg said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAs the grant abstract explains, educators in Colombia and Brazil often lack access to \u201csustained English-language immersion\u00a0and structured engagement with U.S. educational practice,\u201d while U.S. educators rarely have\u00a0comparable opportunities for deep engagement with Latin American classrooms and languages.<\/p>\n \n\tThis\u00a0produces what the abstract called \u201chemispheric inequality\u201d in access to high-quality language and intercultural\u00a0learning that is compounded by gaps in civic knowledge.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFamiliarity with U.S. history and governance remains limited among many Latin American educators, just as knowledge of Colombian and\u00a0Brazilian contexts remain thin among their U.S. counterparts,\u201d the abstract said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe program addresses these\u00a0asymmetries \u201cthrough genuine reciprocity across all three cohorts.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\u2018High reputation\u2019 and structure<\/p>\n \n\tPitt was among three learning institutions to receive the grant funding, with $2.2 going to the University of Pennsylvania, while California State University campuses at Los Angeles and Fullerton collectively received $4.8 million. The former\u2019s linguistics department will focus on South Africa, Kenya and Ghana. Cal State L.A.\u2019s Pan-African and Africana studies program also include South Africa and Senegal as well as Asian languages.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen the call for grant applications went out last June, Grinberg admitted her expectations weren\u2019t high.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFor starters, the federal government changed\u00a0Title VI\/NRC grants that support area and language training in the U.S. When those were canceled,\u00a0CLAS applied to MECI based on its support for cultural exchange and teaching of languages.<\/p>\n \n\tAs the grant\u2019s principal investigator (PI), Grinberg worked with\u00a0Luz Amanda Hank, assistant director for partnerships and programming at CLAS, and Luis G. Van Fossen Bravo, its associate director,\u00a0to put together and apply for the grant.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI thought we would not get it. I was very, very surprised,\u201d Grinberg said. \u201cIn the call, they said they would only grant four centers in the whole country. This is why I imagine many centers didn’t apply. I don’t know how many applicants there were, but they, from the beginning, said that we were No. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSo, I was very surprised\u00a0with both outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe noted that the six core areas covered by the\u00a0University Center for Global Studies (UCIS<\/a>) being considered \u201cnational resource centers\u201d helped Pitt\u2019s chances.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIn the last competition, we were one of the very few universities that got all the centers funded by the federal programs,\u201d she said. \u201cPitt has, I think, a very high reputation on international education and the teaching of foreign languages. I think that’s one of the reasons that we got this grant.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe also credits support from UCIS leadership and\u00a0Pitt Research<\/a>\u00a0in helping the CLAS team design the brand \u201cin the way that we wanted,\u201d but also with the \u201cspecificities that sometimes we don’t get when we’re just writing ourselves. We got feedback, we got reviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cExternally, I think, we have a very high reputation, and internally we got the necessary structure and support that we needed to apply for such a big grant.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis MECE-driven project has a broader scope than was originally laid out through the Fulbright-Hays Act, which coordinated\u00a0between the U.S. Departments of Education and State\u00a0to accommodate experiences abroad for U.S. educators.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAs someone who learned English later in life, I think that this one attracted me precisely because of the possibility of providing not only Spanish and Portuguese training, but also English training for teachers in Latin America,\u201d Grinberg said. \u201cWe did not have a model.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe noted that Luz Amanda Hank, who was \u201creally crucial in the development of this,\u201d is from Colombia, where Pitt has strong collaborations. \u201cWe thought that this would be a way for us to design a triangular collaboration between teachers in those places.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWith the seemingly elusive grant secured, Grinberg noted that the real work begins now.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe have our groups in each country, and now we will sort of organize those meetings. The first thing is how to select the teachers from each place. In each place we’ll have partners. In Pennsylvania we have partners in education too, and we will start this application process for high school teachers to apply for that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn spring the team will complete the process of gathering teachers, determining what students will participate, \u201cand then we’ll start putting together the language training.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGrinberg emphasized the importance of working with the ELI, which provides the language-instruction element.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFor the history lessons, we’ll partner with the history department in the different places (and) universities and their departments of\u00a0language and history.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe and the team are hoping big things can come from a small but focused cohort.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt’s not a big team. In each country we’ll have different groups, but the core team is very small.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tShannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at\u00a0shannonw@pitt.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tHave a story idea or news to share?\u00a0Share<\/a>\u00a0it with the University Times.<\/p>\n