Students in Señora Fairchild's AP Spanish Language and Culture class recently met over Zoom from their home kitchens for a hands-on study of Spanish food and the diversity within Spanish-speaking and other cultures. The cooking “show” provided a fun way to show cultural diversity with a simple dish, the tortilla.
Señora Fairchild and Señora Madriz, Trinity Hall's business manager, led the students through the steps to make a tortilla de maíz (corn tortilla from Mexico and Central America) and tortilla española (egg and potato tortilla from Spain). The diversity of the components of the tortilla and cooking methods of different Spanish-speaking countries, including the different indigenous communities within those regions, became clear.
"Making the tortillas was a great lesson to learn about the traditions surrounding food within Spanish culture," said Jenna Falconite '21. "It was also a great way to wrap up our unit on food and a great lead into our next unit, diversity, by showing how different Spanish countries have a unique way of making the same food."
Later in the week, the lessons learned from the cooking demonstration were reinforced in the classroom. Señora Fairchild asked her students a series of essential questions to further define and identify diversity. These classroom discussions, conducted in Spanish, supplement lessons in vocabulary and grammar, and enhance the advanced students' appreciation of the language and culture. The AP Spanish Language and Culture course is structured around six themes: Beauty and Aesthetics, Contemporary Life, Families and Communities, Global Challenges, Personal and Public Identities, and Science and Technology. The themes facilitate the integration of language, content, and culture, and promote the use of the language in a variety of contexts with special emphasis on recognizing the distinct cultural perspectives of Spanish-speaking peoples.
"Our lessons are based on culture," explained Señora Fairchild. "Authentic materials are the best way to teach vocabulary and grammar. Anything contrived really doesn’t do language learning justice. Grammar and vocabulary are just the tools to actually learn a language. If you don’t understand the culture you’ll never achieve fluency."