By Cheryl Lai (CAS’26, COM’26)

For Master Lecturer in Spanish Borja Ruiz de Arbulo, language is a vehicle for understanding perspectives, opening possibilities, and building trust.

Originally from northern Spain, Ruiz de Arbulo learned English at a young age. He studied English at the University of the Basque Country, and was an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. He moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies in Spanish Applied Linguistics at Purdue University, Indiana, and taught Spanish language and culture courses at multiple universities before coming to BU.

And, he says, he feels privileged that learning English at such a young age made all of that possible.

“I think about how lucky I’ve been as an immigrant in the United States and how unfair it is that many others do not enjoy the same benefits,” he said. “I think there’s a gap — a misunderstanding — about immigrant communities in the United States, and I think that language is one of the vehicles to bridge that gap.”

This realization came to light during the COVID-19 quarantine, when Ruiz de Arbulo was taking an online enrichment course through BU’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. He saw people struggling around the country and the world, and as he learned about the communities of Greater Boston, he realized he could make a difference by teaching language beyond Commonwealth Avenue.

At the suggestion of his professor, Catherine Ritz, clinical assistant professor at Wheelock, Ruiz de Arbulo reached out to Julie Caldarone, then-director of World Languages for the Boston Public Schools, who has since retired. He pitched the idea of an online course to empower adults in Boston Public Schools to communicate with families and students from Spanish speaking countries.

Together, Ruiz de Arbulo and Caldarone created “Spanish for BPS Educators,” a free 14-week online hands-on professional-development class for Boston Public School teachers, principals, nurses, and staff members who work with students and families.

Rather than a general language course, the class targets specific scenarios and situations that Boston Public Schools staff members might encounter when meeting families from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Central American countries — questions about transportation, health, how to welcome family members into a classroom, or what they can do to make a family comfortable in a principal’s office, which make students and families “feel valued. Like someone sees them,” Caldarone said.

“Even just phrases like ‘hello, how are you?’ ‘Please have a seat,’ or ‘it’s good to be with you’ welcomes a family into the school building and makes them feel less nervous.” Caldarone said. “We even taught them how to introduce a translator for when discussions get specific.”

And that, Ruiz de Arbulo said, helps build trust — between the school system and the families that it serves.

“Our goal really is to increase trust and to help those families feel like they can go to these schools — that schools are their place, and that they are welcomed,” he said. “So if we can help even one family feel welcome in a public school in Boston, I think we have achieved our goal.”

Since its inception in 2020, the course has been wildly popular. Caldarone and Ruiz de Arbulo have educated over 250 members of BPS staff — some who report an improvement in their interactions with students as soon as the next school day.

“It’s very actionable,” Ruiz de Arbulo added. “They don’t have to wait for it to sink in. They can come to class on a Tuesday night and use it on Wednesday morning.”

The next step for Ruiz de Arbulo and Caldarone is to expand the project to offer additional languages in the Boston Public Schools — including Chinese and French — as well as to expand beyond the districts in Greater Boston and beyond.

“Moving forward, we want to see if we can expand this project to make school districts a little more inclusive,” he said. “We use language as a vehicle for that trust because that’s our field, but ultimately, we want to make the world a bit more inclusive and trust is a big one.”