About Us:
What is Authentic Oral Spanish?
Authentic Spanish Language and Cultures is a site for all who love the Spanish language and culture in all its amazing variety. It contains access to spontaneous, unscripted narratives shared in a broad range of social and regional oral speech. Each narrative offers a different cultural perspective based on memories, perceptions, and experiences as narrated by people, young and old, from Latin America and Spain. This vast library is available to anyone who is looking to improve their knowledge of the Spanish language and cultures, free of charge.
Why Authentic Spanish?
This collection of recorded oral narratives is unique. There are very few oral learning materials available based on authentic, spontaneous Spanish narrations in diverse dialects. Videos and CDs that accompany language texts are almost always scripted and, if spontaneous, are constrained to fit the parameters of the language chapter of the specific unit. Textbook Spanish is reduced and filtered for each specific level of language learning. Authentic Spanish Language and Cultures is none of these things, but rather a library of natural conversation.
In order to help students understand language other than that spoken by their teachers and to develop real life conversational skills the text materials need to be supplemented by appropriate authentic oral language. By having non scripted text or excerpts from movies or TV students can better develop language skills. Frustration results when students attempt to use their language in a real life setting with people who do not speak within the rigid parameters of the classroom. Natural conversations include not always speaking in full sentences, tending to sidetrack occasionally, hesitation, changing topics mid-sentence, inserting crutches, and generally talking over one another. By increasing exposure to unscripted, natural language students will find less frustration in their attempts to converse with native speakers.
These videos expose students to a wide range of cultures within Spanish, as well as help students develop language proficiency. While enhancing their knowledge of the world, students will develop a greater level of awareness and appreciation for the individuality of people clustered under terms such as “Hispanic” and “Latino”. Heritage speakers of Spanish will be introduced to the breadth and diversity of their own language and culture. This framework encourages pride of self and respect for others with backgrounds and ways of speaking that differ from their own.
About Dr. Schairer:
Karen Schairer started her studies of the Spanish language in high school. Through college she continued to develop her skills in the language, working towards her Bachelors degree. Her junior year was spent abroad studying at the National University in México City, where she lived with a native family and fell in love with the people and their culture. After graduating with a BA in Spanish Language and Literature she spent two years in the Peace Corps in a rural Colombian village. From there she earned a MA degree in Latin American Studies then a PhD in Spanish Linguistics after studying language acquisition. Her vast Spanish teaching experience encompasses all ages from junior high and high school students to older adults at community college. The past 30+ years have been spent as an Associate Professor of Spanish Language and Cultures at Northern Arizona University (NAU).
Her travels have included going to Quéretaro and Cuernavaca, México, to San José, Costa Rica, and Salamanca, Spain as Resident Director for NAU students studying abroad. She has received a Fullbright scholarship for multiple extended trips to El Salvador where she worked directly with the Salvadoran Ministry of Culture to create the “National Archive of Salvadoran Oral Histories.” This project was an effort to preserve, on video, their culture weakened by years of civil war.
