This section discusses how the changing students’ experiences necessitated a rethinking of the educational programme and the development of an active pedagogy. The reform used two powerful instruments: an adaptation of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which allows the language coordinator to evaluate the linguistic needs of students upon arrival (and the students to recognise their own strengths and weaknesses) and to design strategies that help them improve during the semester; and the new Common Framework for Intercultural Learning, inspired by the former, which allows students to acquire and improve behavioural intercultural skills through self-managed research practices. This section describes how the language teaching reform was carried out in the programme, the role of the Common Framework for Intercultural Learning, the role of the mentors who accompany students in their learning paths throughout the semester and describes the combined use of these tools.
Jorge Cívico Gallardo, Intercultural Mentor of the CASA-Sevilla study abroad programme since 2015, holds a degree in Hispanic Philology from the University of Seville. He has worked as a teacher of Spanish Language and Literature in high schools since 2007 and as a tutor in Spanish and Latin American Language and Literature courses at the Michigan-Cornell-Penn centre since 2004. Email: jordimellamo@gmail.com
Richard Feldman is Director Emeritus of the Cornell Language Resource Center. After graduating from Cornell University, he worked in the Peace Corps in Benin (Dahomey), earned a master's degree in TESOL and taught in Nicaragua for two years. In 1978, he began a forty-year career at Cornell, teaching in the Intensive English Programme and directing the Language Resource Center. He originated video-conference course sharing and created original platforms for foreign language study. With Davydd Greenwood, he participated in the reform of the Cornell programme in Seville, introducing language teaching and evaluation concepts and working with the current study. He retired from Cornell in 2018. Email: dick.feldman@gmail.com
Purificación García Saez, Mentor of the CASA-Sevilla study abroad programme, was born in Seville and educated at the University of Seville, Anglia Ruskin University and St. Bonaventure University. She holds a PhD in English Philology from the University of Seville, where she defended her dissertation, ‘Trasfondo social y legal de Wuthering Heights’, in 2007. Most of her research was done in the United States, where she worked as a teacher assistant. For the past nineteen years, she has been teaching Spanish as a second language to American students from Cornell, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard. She currently teaches English at the secondary school Juan Nepomuceno Rojas in Seville. Email: purigarcia@hotmail.com
Davydd J. Greenwood is Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at Cornell University, where he taught for forty-four years. A Corresponding Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, his work centres on action research, general systems and evolutionary theory, political economy, ethnic conflict, community and regional development and neoliberal reforms of higher education. He is the co-author with Morten Levin of Creating a New Public University and Reviving Democracy: Action Research in Higher Education (Berghahn Books, 2016). Email: djg6@cornell.edu
Eva Infante Mora, Director of the CASA-Sevilla study abroad programme, is responsible for overall administration of the centre, including day-to-day management of the programme, student advising, liaison with the University of Seville and supervision of programme faculty and staff. A native of Seville (Spain), she holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Seville, and an MA in Modern Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan. She has been with CASA-Sevilla since 1997. Email: eva@sevilla.casa.education
Melina Ivanchikova, Associate Director of the Cornell Inclusive Teaching, Center for Teaching Innovation, supports the teaching mission of Cornell University (teaching.cornell.edu) and offers consultations and faculty development programming to integrate inclusive teaching practices. She has partnered with the CASA-Sevilla study abroad programme since 2015. She is a bicultural poet, the co-author (with Elena Lafter) of Lugar de Origen / Place of Origin (2008) and the author Later the House Stood Empty (2014). Email: md734@cornell.edu
Juan Muñoz Andrade, Coordinator of Language Learning of the CASA-Sevilla study abroad programme since 2015, graduated in English Philology from the University of Seville and is an English teacher and Deputy Principal at IES Albero. He has taught English as a Foreign Language at high schools since 1986, and Spanish in several positions and institutions in the United States, among them University of Michigan, Middlebury College Language Schools and Central Connecticut State University. He has also taught Spanish in the University of Michigan's summer programme in Salamanca. He has worked as a teacher and language coordinator at the Michigan-Cornell-Penn centre in Seville since 1986. Email: jmunozalbero@gmail.com