UND Today

University of North Dakota’s Official News Source

Teaching from half a world away

Not just remotely, but very remotely: UND Professor Claudia Routon teaches Spanish while sheltering in place in Spain

Spanish language professor Claudia Routon is teaching nearly 60 UND students remotely from Spain, where she is sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic. Photo courtesy of Claudia Routon.

When Claudia Routon appeared on the computer screen, a window behind her letting the afternoon light stream in, she was composed, her voice soft.

But Routon, a Spanish language professor at the University of North Dakota, who is currently remotely teaching from Spain, worries about the effects the coronavirus pandemic is having on students, on health professionals, on those who are battling the respiratory illness, on workers who have lost their income, on communities coping with the impact of it all around the world.

UND Today had arranged a Zoom interview to chat about Routon’s life in Spain, where she had hunkered down after a professional trip in March coincided with the rise of various local and international measures to curb travel amid the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

Routon could not leave the country after a national shutdown resulted in the cancelation of her return flight to the U.S. So, as the University suspended in-person classes after spring break, she figured a way to teach her students in the U.S. despite a seven-hour time difference and the unprecedented global situation.

For our interview earlier this week, “I just hope that the focus can be on the students and on the people who are making this better,” she said.

In service to students

This semester, half of which is effectively unfolding remotely, Routon is teaching about 60 students through three Spanish courses. She has decided to teach asynchronously, giving students various possibilities to explore the language but also to escape the numbing routine of self-quarantining.

Routon’s assignments include whipping together a cooking show (students should learn how to fix a good meal, she said) and delivering news reports that help students strengthen their grasp of Spanish.

“In order to practice commands, for example, I asked them to be reporters and tell people what to do during a disaster,” Routon said. “Some people chose the coronavirus but other people chose events such as a zombie invasion.”

During in-person classes, Routon liked to switch the spotlight to students. She would lecture for about half an hour and then engage in a discussion. She has translated that style online too, with regular video meetings that provide an outlet for students to share their experiences.

Some students, she said, lacked textbooks, which they left behind in their dorms when they departed for spring break. Others lost jobs that helped pay for college. Yet others remained stranded in Grand Forks, unable to return to their home countries.

“Everyone has their stories, and they have their coping methods, and they’re also wishing there was class,” Routon said, adding that students are now chronicling their days in journals that serve as writing assignments.

Having adjusted classes and made herself available, Routon aims to foster an outlet for students not only to learn a foreign language but, even more importantly, to rationalize their lives amid a pandemic.

“I did worry about a sense of community and whether people were needing that because the students, of course, are hugely impacted,” she said. “I mean, we all are impacted, but students are why we’re at UND.”

A once busy village quieted

At any other time, the village where Routon is now sheltering in place – Mijas Pueblo – would buzz with tourists flocking to explore its cobblestone streets and picturesque setting in the mountains of Southern Spain near the Mediterranean coast.

Mijas Pueblo is a picturesque village in southern Spain. Photo courtesy of Claudia Routon.

“If you climb the Mijas mountain, sometimes you can see Gibraltar and the North African mountains,” Routon said. “It’s quite lovely.”

Today, though, it is mostly quiet. Neighbors do not gather, heeding local social distancing orders. Routon, who was born in upstate New York but spent her childhood in Spain, now seeks pleasure in activities that only a month or so ago seemed mundane.

“I can go out to get groceries and sometimes I’ll go and just take the long walk towards the market and buy two lemons so that I can come back later and buy a tomato, and then do it again,” she said.

Every time she ventures out, though, she wears protective gear. She also has to keep her receipts to show police who occasionally stop people to inquire about their reasons to be outside their homes. In many European countries, stay-at-home orders have come with increased law enforcement presence.

“It’s doesn’t feel like a police state,” Routon said. “We call it a state of alarm here rather than a state of emergency.”

So far, there are no confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Mijas Pueblo, Routon said.

A sense of connection to UND

When she arrived in Spain, Routon carried a small laptop, which would have made remote instruction hard. But the College of Arts & Sciences provided her with the equipment she needed to teach remotely across the globe.

While Routon is seven hours – almost a work day – ahead of fellow UND professors, her department chair and college dean, she is still able to participate in faculty meetings, she said. Her days just start and end later than her colleagues’.

“I feel I have good access to UND as a professor,” she said. “We are doing the best we can to cope with this too.”