Stories

Advanced search

Celebrating different languages and cultures

1 June 2009

Group of student actors with Rogelio Vallejo

The performers for Semana-Cultural-Week
Photo by Sebastian Bustamante

Rogelio Vallejo, Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, has developed novel approaches to language teaching, most notably through drama.

His students devise performances in Spanish and involve themselves in all aspects of production, from script-writing to marketing and sponsorship. Performances take place during Semana-Cultural-Week, an annual celebration of Hispanic and Lusophone cultures, organised by the Hispanic Department. It explores many different aspects of the cultures represented in the department and events ranging from inter-cultural football matches to art exhibitions are organised, attracting a general as well as a university audience.

This way of using theatre as a learning aid, linked to Semana-Cultural-Week, has been so successful that it has led to the formation of an award-winning course: Language Through Theatre (LTT), a second year optional unit.

Students were investing a huge amount of effort to produce short plays and were learning so much. Now we assess the performances for Language Through Theatre during Semana-Cultural-Week itself.

Rogelio Vallejo
Rogelio said: “Students were investing a huge amount of effort to produce short plays and were learning so much. Now we assess the performances for Language Through Theatre during Semana-Cultural-Week itself.”

“We are delighted that showing these plays attracts a public audience — it makes it so much more worthwhile for the students and provides an easy insight for members of the public into Hispanic life.”

Student performers A Latin American Forum also takes place during Semana-Cultural-Week. Organised jointly by the department and external enthusiasts, it continues the marketplace feel of seminars, films and discussion.

Rogelio commented: “It attracts a large general audience in addition to interested groups and societies from outside Bristol. Embassies, solidarity groups and our students come to discuss current and historical issues around Latin America”. This forum brings University staff and students together with other stakeholders interested in the Hispanic world. It also brings a little Latino magic to the West Country.

 

Please contact The Public Engagement Officer for further information.

Further information:

Rogelio Vallejo is also a Higher Education Academy (HEA) National Teaching Fellow. He can be contacted by email at r.vallejo@bristol.ac.uk.

Semana-Cultural-Week, 9-14 March 2009 promises to be the usual cornucopia of excitingly diverse events, brilliantly devised to illuminate the richness of the Spanish and Lusophone worlds. Further information is available online.

With the help of funds from the HEA Teaching Fellowship, he is developing a new iniative: T.A.L.L.E.R. - Teaching, Arts, Languages, Learning, Education, Research - a national project for teaching languages, via other disciplines, at all levels. This programme is committed to further collaborative work with schools and colleges and has already benefited from support from the University's Widening Participation and Undergraduate Recruitment Office to enable visits to LTT workshops by secondary schools.
Semana-Cultural-Week is an annual event during which the normal activities of the department are increased and complemented by an intensive programme of general cultural interest. To date, this has included lectures and seminars on a large and exciting range of historical, political and cultural subjects as well as exhibitions, films, performances, culinary events and celebrations. Contributors have come from a wide variety of backgrounds and also from universities all over the world. Presentations have been made in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan and English.