{"id":81031,"date":"2024-08-07T12:08:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T16:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/?p=81031"},"modified":"2025-08-25T12:20:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T16:20:34","slug":"breakinglanguagebarriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/breakinglanguagebarriers\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Barriers through Language"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Cheryl Lai (CAS\u201926,\u00a0COM\u201926)<\/h6>\n
\"Master
Master Lecturer in Spanish Borja Ruiz de Arbulo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Master Lecturer in Spanish Borja Ruiz de Arbulo<\/a>, language is a vehicle for understanding perspectives, opening possibilities, and building trust.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And, he says, he feels privileged that learning English at such a young age made all of that possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there’s a gap \u2014 a misunderstanding \u2014 about immigrant communities in the United States, and I think that language is one of the vehicles to bridge that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

This realization came to light during the COVID-19 quarantine, when Ruiz de Arbulo was taking an online enrichment course through BU\u2019s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

At the suggestion of his professor, Catherine Ritz, clinical assistant professor at Wheelock<\/a>, Ruiz de Arbulo reached out to Julie Caldarone, then-director of World Languages for the Boston Public Schools<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\"Master
Master Lecturer in Spanish Borja Ruiz de Arbulo and Julie Caldarone, former director of World Languages for the Boston Public Schools, created \u201cSpanish for BPS Educators,\u201d 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 to communicate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Together, Ruiz de Arbulo and Caldarone created \u201cSpanish for BPS Educators,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 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\u2019s office, which make students and families \u201cfeel valued. Like someone sees them,\u201d Caldarone said.<\/p>\n

\"Julie
Julie Caldarone, former director of World Languages for Boston Public Schools<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEven just phrases like \u2018hello, how are you?\u2019 \u2018Please have a seat,\u2019 or \u2018it’s good to be with you\u2019 welcomes a family into the school building and makes them feel less nervous.\u201d Caldarone said. \u201cWe even taught them how to introduce a translator for when discussions get specific.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that, Ruiz de Arbulo said, helps build trust \u2014 between the school system and the families that it serves.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal really is to increase trust and to help those families feel like they can go to these schools \u2014 that schools are their place, and that they are welcomed,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if we can help even one family feel welcome in a public school in Boston, I think we have achieved our goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its inception in 2020, the course has been wildly popular. Caldarone and Ruiz de Arbulo have educated over 250 members of BPS staff \u2014 some who report an improvement in their interactions with students as soon as the next school day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very actionable,\u201d Ruiz de Arbulo added. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next step for Ruiz de Arbulo and Caldarone is to expand the project to offer additional languages in the Boston Public Schools \u2014 including Chinese and French \u2014 as well as to expand beyond the districts in Greater Boston and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving forward, we want to see if we can expand this project to make school districts a little more inclusive,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAS lecturer teams up with Boston Public Schools administrator to teach Spanish to teachers, principals, nurses, and staff members <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20868,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,547,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20868"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81031"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81462,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81031\/revisions\/81462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}