Berta Carrasco de Miguel Joins Foreign Languages/Literatures Department
Berta Carrasco de Miguel has joined Immaculata University´s Foreign Languages and Literatures Department as an assistant professor of foreign language. She is teaching Elementary Spanish, Intermediate Spanish and Spanish-Peninsular Literature.
"I love each one of these classes," Carrasco de Miguel says. "In the elementary class, I have many freshmen that are taking Spanish for the first time. I understand the influence I could have on these students, since they are being exposed to a foreign language for the first time. It is very exciting to see how they learn, through baby-steps, to communicate in a second language. It is awesome to see the smile on their faces when they get a new concept or conjugation.
"I try to teach through a communicative style so what we learn in class could be applicable in any situation they have," Carrasco de Miguel says of her teaching strategy. "Teaching literature is a little gift for me. It is amazing to see how non-native students deal with difficult texts written in a different language in the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries."
A doctoral candidate at Western Michigan University, Carrasco de Miguel earned her Master of Arts in Spanish there in 2007. Before coming to Immaculata, Carrasco de Miguel was a teaching assistant for six years at Western Michigan University. She was the assistant director for the Santander Study Abroad Program in Spain, where she created and taught a course on Hispanic culture and led students on excursions. At Western Michigan, she was an English-Spanish translator, a Spanish mentor, and the international orientation leader.
Carrasco de Miguel has won two awards from the Department of Spanish at Western Michigan University: the Graduate Research and Creative Award and the Teaching Effectiveness Award. She also won the All-University Graduate Teaching Effectiveness Award. She has given presentations on Spanish literature, its portrayals of women and men, and its treatment of the Spanish Civil War.
Carrasco de Miguel expresses excitement about teaching two grammar classes, a composition class, and another literature class next semester. "I know I will find challenges in these new classes, but the passion I feel about my job makes me get better and better every day," she says.
