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Raúl Fernández Travel-Study
Award
The Georgia Chapter offers an award of $500 to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses incurred during study
abroad programs in Spanish or Portuguese-speaking countries. The 2009 award winner is Michelle Peace, the Spanish
teacher at Early County High School, who will be continuing her education in Salamanca this summer. The 2009 award is
given in loving memory of Raúl Fernández, a long time foreign language educator and advocate, and
member of AATSP Georgia Chapter Executive Board, who was a vital force in creating the activities, awards, and opportunities
that we offer our membership today. Following Raúl's passing in December 2008, this award, formerly given in memory
of Julia Fernández, Raúl's mother, will now be offered annually in his memory.
To qualify as
a recipient of our Travel-Study Award, one must be a Georgia educator returning to the classroom in the following school year
to teach Spanish or Portuguese. Special consideration will be given to members who have been active in national AATSP and
Chapter programs, which include the following:
♦AATSP organized programs and workshops for teachers. Winners
of AATSP-administered awards who have significant out-of-pocket transportation expenses may also apply. For more information
consult the national website at: www.aatsp.org.
♦Programs for teachers offered by the Embassy of Spain. For
more information, see: www.sgci.mec.es/usa/becas/
♦ Study Abroad programs sponsored by Georgia colleges and universities. Members who have been accepted to
participate in one of the programs described above are encouraged to apply for this award.
The complete application
will consist of the following materials:
•A photocopy of the letter of acceptance from the sponsoring
institution. ♦A statement of anticipated program-related
expenses. Include tuition, room, board, airfare and other transportation expenses. (Do not include optional excursions, souvenirs,
etc.) Please indicate clearly how much is being
paid by other sources (your school, any scholarships, staff development stipends, etc.) and how much will come out of
your own pocket.
•A cover letter addressing
the following points:
how participation in the program will benefit the teacher and the impact participation
will have on the applicant’s teaching, (If this information is included elsewhere in the application packet, just reference
it here.); the applicant’s participation in national and Georgia AATSP programs over the years (Include meeting
attendance, presentations, sponsorship of SHH, student participation in NSE, composition contests, Immersion Camp, etc.);
agreement to write a 250-word article about the program, to be published in Al Día.
The completed
application packet should be mailed by April 11, 2010 to:
Dr. Jana Sandarg
Dept. of English and Foreign Languages
Augusta State University
2500 Walton Way
Augusta, GA 30904-2200
Notification of winner and alternates
will be the second week in May.
At the end of the program, the winning participant should send the article for
Al Día, along with a photocopy of the end-of-course document. (For many programs, this is a certificate. For others
it may be a report card.) The reimbursement check will be issued following receipt of these documents.
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Congratulations to the
2009 recipient of the
Raúl Fernández
Travel-Study Award
Michelle Bruner Peace
Early County High School
Report from Salamanca, Spain July 2009:
I am honored to have
been selected for a masters degree program at the University of Salamanca, which is the oldest university in Spain.
The University of Salamanca was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX and it boasts a rich history of both academic and cultural
facets. Due to the agreement between the University of Salamanca and the Georgia Board of Regents, the State of Georgia
will recognize the degree I will earn as if I attained it from a school in Georgia. Having visited Salamanca four times,
I thought I knew all there was to know about this wonderful city in central Spain. However, I am pleased to report that
I was wrong and my summer was filled with learning new things and recalling amazing aspects of this great city. With the masters program, students have the option of living in the dormitory or with a Spanish family.
Having lived with various Spanish families during my previous visits to Salamanca, I knew that living with a family offers
an authentic insight into Spanish culture that is not available anywhere else. I have lived with four families during
my five summers in Salamanca and each has presented a different view of family roles and cultural interactions. The Spanish professors were just as skilled as I remembered them from my undergraduate classes in earlier
years. In fact, on the second day of class, my grammar professor said that my face looked familiar and she asked if
I had taken other classes at the University. I told her that she was my grammar professor during my first summer abroad
in 2000. I was astounded that she would remember my face from nine years before among the thousands she must have seen
since that time to which she replied, "¡Es chupao!" While the classes
were very intense, the program is well planned and I learned a great deal. The program is designed for teachers, and
classes are completed in two summers of five weeks each. After the summer classes are concluded, students have up to
two years to write their 40-page thesis to complete the program and earn their master's degree from the most prominent Spanish
University in the world. I highly recommend this program to all Spanish teachers; there is no better place to earn a
Spanish degree than from where the Spanish language originated. If pursuing a masters degree is not a priority now,
I still urge you to visit Salamanca for an enriching experience that will enhance the cultural insight that you can offer
your students.
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