Lori Hopkins
Assistant Professor of Spanish

Teaching students to speak Spanish “correctly” is only a small part of the foreign language classroom experience for Spanish Professor Lori Hopkins.

Even more, she challenges students to think analytically and critically about Latin American culture, in part so they can learn about their own culture.

“What does it mean to be an American within the Americas? I try to realign my students’ conception of the first world/Third World paradigm, to instead think of the United States as a nation among many within the Americas, a vibrant, diverse, and eclectic geographical region,” Hopkins says.

And it’s a culture that she dearly loves. Hopkins considers Argentina her second home, a home she first visited during a year-long adventure before starting her master’s in Spanish 15 years ago.

At the time, Argentina was transition-ing to a democracy. “It was a fascinating time to look at the ways that a people deal with having had such a patriarchal, oppressive regime followed by a democracy, and all of the trials and tribulations of a society opening up.”

This fascination led to her doctoral dissertation in 1993 about how literature helps a country understand its own history and come to terms with its difficult past in order to reconstruct its identity.

Hopkins teaches Spanish by exploring with students the rich Latin American cultures via literature, art, and film, and debating social and political issues.

“What is important is to learn about the culture and literature of the Spanish language, to appreciate that the culture and literature of Mexico are unique entities, different from the culture and literature of Cuba or Argentina. This is one of the exciting aspects about my field, that students become more aware of the numerous similarities and the startling diversity among the many different American countries,” she says.

Instead of having students write about or discuss a familiar topic, Hopkins asks them to use writing and discussions to explore topics they don’t understand. “I always want my students to challenge themselves and feel that maybe it was tough, but that they learned a lot and they were made to think,” she explains.

While learning to speak Spanish can be daunting, Hopkins stresses that students don’t have to master the language in order to communicate. “We all have different ways of learning languages and sometimes it’s just finding out what those ways are,” she says.

“I teach them to go on hunches, even if they’re wrong. There are many ways to say things. Maybe you don’t know the word for it, but you know how to talk around it,” she says. “I tell students that they really know more than they think they do.”

Juliette Rogers, associate professor of French, was so impressed by Hopkins’ teaching methods when she enrolled in her Advanced Spanish Conversation and Composition course that she incorporated Hopkins’ teaching methods into her French courses.

“From the very first day of class… Lori made the classroom environment a non-intimidating one. Her pedagogical practices involved a mix of conversation activities that allowed for a variety of learning styles, and although I never became a fluent speaker of Spanish, my ability to produce full sentences improved immensely over the semester,” Rogers says.

There is a genuine respect between Hopkins and her students, which student Andrea Szirbik explained this way: “Many teachers are only there to relay information to their students, but Lori helps students to understand the material. She is fun and creative in class, which makes it a joy to be there rather than a requirement.”

—Lori Gula,
UNH News Bureau