Spanish for Specific Purposes Graduate Assistantship Positions Fall 2023-Spring 2025- Colorado State University

Spanish for Specific Purposes Graduate Assistantship Positions

Applicants must apply to and be accepted by the Spanish MA program at CSU.

For full consideration, applications must be received by March 15, 2023.

For any questions about this SSP Graduate Assistantship opportunity, please email Shannon Zeller at email hidden; JavaScript is required. For general questions about our graduate program, please visit http://languages.colostate.edu/graduate-program/. And to start your application, visit https://graduateschool.colostate.edu/apply/ 

Fall 2023-Spring 2025

Faculty at Colorado State University’s Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department have received funding to create, deliver and enhance Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP) curriculum in the area of Spanish for Veterinarians. This effort aims to address the language gap between English speaking veterinary professionals and Limited English Proficient (LEP) Spanish speaking companion animal owners and livestock animal caretakers living within the United States. The research team dedicated to this project has conducted an extensive Language Needs Analysis (LNA) in the domain and has outlined an exciting curricular program that will begin its pilot delivery to doctoral students enrolled in CSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine in the Fall of 2023.

PetSmart Charities, the project funders, support the onboarding of two Graduate Assistants to aid in this unique effort to bridge the Spanish/English language gap in veterinary medicine and increase access to veterinary care for LEP Spanish speaking pet owners. These assistants will have the opportunity to fully engage in pioneering efforts in Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) curricular design, delivery, and assessment under the mentorship of experienced faculty who have a strong interest in developing evidence-based curricula addressing areas that rely on a Spanish-speaking workforce and/or interact with Spanish-speaking community members within the United States.

The individuals hired for these assistantships will have the opportunity to collaborate in curricular design based on LNA findings, design Task Based Language Teaching learning materials and performative assessments, engage in classroom-based research to assess student learning outcomes and create curricular enhancements based on student performance in the Spanish for the Veterinarian Professional language program. Assistants will also be able to teach in the LSP classroom, collaborate on academic publications with mentors and data worked with can be used as content from which to base relevant MA research.

The grant team is active, creative, and enthusiastic about addressing the professional Spanish language needs of our students and finding ways to pursue everyone’s unique professional interests. They will also take care to support assistants not only in their work in the Spanish MA and in this LSP undertaking, but also in their work-life balance as busy graduate students.

These graduate assistantships will fund full tuition for the Spanish MA at the department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Colorado State University plus a monthly stipend of $1792 during Fall and Spring semesters of the MA program. Monthly stipends during summer months may be available if assistants commit to working on this LSP effort during that time.

Required Qualifications:

• Advanced proficiency in Spanish
• Experience and/or genuine interest in teaching a second language

Preferred Qualifications:

• Degree in languages, linguistics, applied linguistics, or a related field
• Experience teaching and/or developing curriculum in second/foreign language study
• Experience teaching and/or designing curriculum in Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP)
• Experience in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research
• Interest in assessing student learning of a second/foreign language
• Interest in addressing the Spanish-English language gap in veterinary medicine.