English, Spanish o los dos? Teaching professional writing on the U.S.-Mexico border

Abstract

Theresa Donovan
Teresa Quezada
Isabel Baca
The University of Texas at El Paso, USA

ABSTRACT

In “Spanish for the Professions and Specific Purposes: Curricular Mainstay,” Doyle discusses how SPSP is poised to become an “adaptable signature feature of future Spanish curricula” (2018: 96). For SPSP to become a mainstay, Doyle argues that it requires “greater needs-grounded imagination (…) whose potential SPSP portfolios will vary according to educational missions and contexts” and proposes certificate programs as responsive and adaptable programs to fit diverse curricular contexts (96-97). In this paper, the authors discuss the development of a cross-disciplinary certificate program in Bilingual Professional Writing (Spanish/English) at a public university on the U.S./Mexico border to meet the needs of our unique student body and to better prepare students as globally-minded writing professionals. This model values students’ home languages and echoes Collier and Thomas’ (2004) assertion that a bilingual and dual language approach can be astoundingly effective at the university level.