Many students study Spanish at BYU, but some may not know about the resources provided by the BYU Spanish Resource Center—or that it exists.
Each semester, thousands of students from across campus sign up for Spanish classes. Whether they take Spanish 101 as a new freshman or Spanish 321 as a newly returned missionary, students know their objective—improve their language skills and cultural proficiency.
But what many students may not know is that the BYU Spanish Resource Center is dedicated to enriching students’ classroom learning through hands-on, interactive activities and a culturally rich community.
Twenty-Six Years Strong
Located in the University Parkway Center, the Spanish Resource Center was established in 1999 by the Spanish Ministry of Education and BYU. The center is one of more than a dozen Spanish Resource Centers that promote Spanish language and cultural learning in universities throughout the United States.
Thompson says the center was initially designed to act as a library with books, music, movies, other multimedia, and additional cultural resources for people to use in their study of Spanish. The center has become more than simply a library, though, in large part because of the hands-on cultural learning it offers.
“[The center] is one of the most active resource centers in the United States; we get more people who participate and more people who attend activities,” says faculty liaison and Professor of Spanish Greg Thompson (Spanish, Second Language Acquisition).
Connecting Through Activities
Under the leadership of Director María Luisa Vásquez Pestonit and Thompson, student employees play a large role in organizing and running the center’s activities for both BYU students and the larger Spanish speaking community. “Our students have developed activities that have really promoted the center, and they have created engaging activities that students want to come to,” Thompson says.
Weekly activities—which welcome Spanish speakers of all levels—focus on the culture of different Spanish speaking countries; throughout the week, students talk about a specific country’s culture and participate in interactive activities, such as learning to prepare Chilean hotdogs (called completos), playing a traditional Spanish game, or watching a Mexican film.
The center also hosts activities for the wider Spanish speaking community in Provo, including a short-story competition for elementary, middle, junior high, and high school students.
“Every activity is different, and every group of people that comes in is different. Everyone has a different story, background, or knowledge about certain countries, and I enjoy learning from everyone in the room,” says Isabella Vizcaino (Psychology ’27), secretary of the Spanish Resource Center.
Learning About the Spanish World
Thompson anticipates that as students engage with the Spanish Resource Center, they will become familiar with countries they haven’t known much about. “We’re hoping students maintain the love they already have for the culture they know and that we also help them to learn there’s a large Spanish speaking world out there,” Thompson says.
Before working at the center, Vizcaino recalled being familiar with only Mexican culture, since she was raised in Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, but after a year and a half at the center, her perspective has widened.
“I’ve learned about so many countries, the similarities and differences between them, and the beauty of each country and culture. I’ve seen how people can grow to love the country they serve [missions] in, the language, and the Latino culture in general,” Vizcaino says. “It’s expanded my vision of the beauty and complexity of the world.”
More information on the Spanish Resource Center, including office hours, can be found here.