We have spots for the Fall of 2023! MIIS Spanish and/or ICC students and ESL students in Salinas: Send us an email if you want to participate.
Where? Hartnell College
When? Fridays 10-1pm
How? 3 hours in English and Spanish, plus weekly reflections and other assignments.
Why? See below!
Our history
Our journey started in 2015, partnering with Mujeres en Acción (Action Council) and connecting Spanish learners from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies with English learners at Soledad. We started this project with these premises in mind:
- Intercultural exchanges should be at the core of the language curriculum
- Spanish is not a foreign language in the US
- There is a need and desire for language skills in the community
- We wanted to tear away the Californian “lettuce curtain”
After 6 years, we have connected hundreds of learners and worked with different organizations such as the Salinas Adult School, the Monterey Adult School in Seaside, Hartnell College in Salinas (current partner), Playa Ancha University in Chile, and Norte Nativa in Colombia (current partner). We meet on a weekly basis and collaborate in English and Spanish, using a curriculum that evolves with each iteration of Team Tandem.
The concepts most highlighted through the history of Team Tandem are language confidence, awareness, and community, in all senses of the word: the physical sense, in its local implementation; the social sense, in its focus on learning through building relationships and creating new communities; and the political sense, in its connection through the lives of its participants to a wide variety of global issues.
