Dr. Jason Youngkeit
Dr. Youngkeit has traveled extensively throughout the Spanish-speaking world and utilizes real-life examples of Spanish so that his students are exposed to authentic language from actual Hispanic countries.
Biography
Dr. Youngkeit earned his BA, MA, and PhD degrees in Spanish respectively from Weber State University, Texas Tech University and the University of Utah. He has taught Spanish language, culture, and literature at the undergraduate level since 1998. He has traveled extensively throughout the Spanish-speaking world and immensely enjoys incorporating whenever possible his experiences into the teaching of language and culture.
Education
B.A. in Spanish, Weber State University
M.A. in Spanish, Texas Tech University
Ph.D. in Spanish, University of Utah
Research Interests
Latin-American literature and culture-colonial through present; Twentieth and Twenty-first century Argentine narrative and film; Study Abroad
Experience
Dr. Youngkeit very adamantly believes that different sources of authentic language should be used in instruction wherever possible. He considers this to be one of his most notable strengths as a professor of Spanish. Throughout his experience as a teacher he has constantly tried to incorporate real-life examples of Spanish into his teaching so that his students are exposed to real language from bona fide cultural sources. He has done this through the unceasing use of things such as restaurant menus, signs, billboards, videotapes of authentic or simulated exchanges between native speakers, music videos, segments of television shows and documentary/popular films in Spanish, and even at times documentary film clips in English that deal with authentic cultural concepts.
Secondly, he believes that another important component of language teaching is the teaching of culture. He considers culture to be an absolutely integral part of language and in his view the two are inseparable and their teaching can and should lead to greater cross-cultural understanding. He believes that we have to teach our students the value of ethnic and cultural diversity and one way to do this is to integrate one’s own personal experiences into the teaching. As noted previously, he has traveled extensively throughout the Spanish-speaking world and due to his many travels he has been able to reinforce in a personal way much of the material; both cultural, literary, and linguistic, that he presents to in class. This is yet another teaching method that he considers to be one of his strongest and most favorable traits as an educator of foreign language.
Recent Publications
- “Generational Discord and Moral Deviance seen in Cuentas pendientes and Más liviano que el aire.” MIFLC Review 22 (Fall 2023): 102-117.
- “Dominican and Puerto Rican Culture: What Do They Offer to the Teaching of Spanish?” Pages 121-140 in Facilitating the Transformation of the 21st-Century Leader. Edited by Mary Alice Trent, Don Pardlow, and Maeghan Peggy Stevenson Ratliff. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
- Narrating Urban Alterity in the Age of Argentine Neoliberalism: El muchacho de los senos de goma by Sylvia Iparraguirre.” Confluencia 35.1 (Fall 2019): 82-95.
Recent Presentations
“Cuentas pendientes por Martín Kohan: Perspectivas novelescas de una nación conflictiva.” XVII Congreso Internacional de Literatura Hispánica. Mérida, Mexico. March 2016
“Dominican and Puerto Rican Culture: What do they offer to the teaching of Spanish?” Fourteenth Claflin University Conference on Contemporary English and Language Arts Pedagogy in Secondary and Postsecondary Institutions. Claflin University. October 2015
“Blending Linguistic, Cultural, and Historical Elements from the Spanish-speaking World into Effective Teaching Tools.” 65th Annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference. College of Charleston. October 2015.