Language Partners and Study Abroad
Planning to study abroad? The LRC language partners can help you get ready. Gain confidence while building your speaking skills your semester before going abroad!
Meet Sam, pictured here between Karina and Brittany, two of the LRC’s Spanish language partners. In the spring of her freshman year, Sam met regularly with the Spanish language partners for informal conversation before going to Costa Rica the following summer.
Students planning a summer, semester, or year abroad are encouraged to meet for regular conversation with a language partner.
More about Sam
Sam describes her conversation sessions with the language partners as an “opportunity to expand my language skills in such an accessible and simple manner. It is something that I must take advantage of…others should do the same.”
As a Spanish and International Business major, Sam is a language enthusiast who has a deep passion for the Spanish language and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. While enrolled in Spanish 231 her freshman year, she visited the LRC’s two Spanish language partners for informal conversation on a regular basis, meeting with each throughout the entire spring semester. She was motivated to seek out conversation practice because of a summer trip to Costa Rica she was planning. The ongoing sessions Sam attended each week helped prepare her for a unique opportunity she was actively pursuing, namely her 200-hour teaching certification in yoga.
Sam explains that the language partners “kindly correct me when I’m wrong and are very patient with me. They ask me questions and tell me stories so I am constantly listening.” As a result of her sessions, Sam says that she worries less about “little grammar problems” allowing her to focus on “increasing my speed and vocabulary.” Sam emphasizes that working with “someone that speaks and listens to you in the language you are learning can only help you get better, especially before going abroad.”
Sam plans to study abroad her junior year in either Chile or Mexico. After graduation, she would like to teach English in a Spanish speaking country, and eventually open her own yoga studio in the states, and possible even in Costa Rica.