Language Program

Welcome to the Language Program of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UT!

OUR VISION: The Spanish and Portuguese Language Program addresses the basic tenet of a liberal arts education: the development of a critical thinking approach towards the analysis of language in society. This objective is framed in an overall worldwide trend towards political and economical internationalization and an increasingly diverse and multicultural work environment.

OUR MISSION: The Spanish and Portuguese Language Program focuses on the development of multilingual literacies through the analysis and use of Spanish/Portuguese as a second language. The program’s specific objective is the development of three major types of competencies (all equally ranked in terms of importance):

(1)  linguistic competence (phonetics / phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon, discourse, etc.)

(2)  communication / interactional competence (sociocultural uses of the language, pragmatics, cultural background / perspectives)

(3)  metalinguistic competence (language as a conceptual, symbolic system embodied in language use/functions/forms)

OUR GOAL: Our most important goal is to provide the highest level of education in the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese as a second language. In order to achieve our pedagogical goal we train and supervise more than 80 instructors.

OUR AUDIENCE: We offer first to third year Spanish and Portuguese courses to approximately 4,000 students per year. About 1,800 students enroll in our courses each Fall and Spring semester and about 400 students take courses during the summer session.  The present section of the Department’s website is primarily designed for the students who enroll in courses that are part of the Language Program.

OUR PERSONNEL:

Director Language Program:       Rafael Salaberry

General Coordinator:                 Delia Montesinos

Course Supervisors:                   Celina Nevárez (Beginning Spanish - 601D)

                                                Melissa Murphy (Intermediate Spanish - 610D)

                                                Mina Ogando (Intermediate II Spanish - 611D)

                                                Lucía Osa-Melero (Bilingual/Heritage Spanish)

                                                Vivian Flanzer (Beginning and Intermediate Portuguese)

Director Media Center:               Noah Stroehle