Two WLLC alumni — Jhonatan Carmona, M.A. in Spanish, and Camila Bracamonte, Spanish — shared their experiences in the Spanish Program and the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio during their time at the U of A. Bracamonte, who was a Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant for the WLLC Spanish Program teaching SPAN 2013 Intermediate Spanish, comes from Cordoba, Argentina, while Carmona was a Spanish teaching assistant from Colombia.

Both completed their respective programs in May 2023 and have since moved on to their career and/or terminal Ph.D. programs.  

Bracamonte, currently a Hispanic linguistics Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University and a graduate teaching associate for the Spanish and Portuguese Department, worked alongside Carmona under the guidance of Heather Offerman, assistant professor of Spanish at the U of A, to create the Bilingualism Lab Project in spring 2023, which has continued into fall 2023. 

"I believe my experience being a Fulbright language teaching assistant at U of A was crucial for me to understand about the culture of American universities and to prepare for teaching Spanish courses at the college level," Bracamonte said. "I will always consider Arkansas and the Fulbright FLTA program as a valuable experience in my career and will be forever thankful for the opportunities I was given. Although I am a Buckeye now, I hold Razorbacks close to my heart." 

Carmona is currently an AP Spanish language and culture instructor at the Winchendon School in Winchendon, Massachusetts. In addition to his work as a teaching assistant, Carmona also worked at the World Languages & Digital Humanities Studio in J.B. Hunt Center for Excellence, room 207, where he co-founded the VR Classroom for Language Learning with Michael Hall, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature and cultural studies.  

"I developed projects such as the VR Club for language learning and researched the incorporation of digital resources such as Virtual Reality in the language classroom to promote immersive learning and cultural experiences, shared workshops and created lessons for language students at the university," Carmona said.  

Both Bracamonte and Carmona reminisced about what they miss most about the U of A, including the beautiful landscape of Northwest Arkansas, the Greek Theater and attending WLDH Studio events. They also shared their successes with the Bilingualism Lab Project and Offerman.  

"Professor Offerman helped pave the way towards my academic future, and I learned so much in her Hispanic Linguistics and Phonetics and Phonology courses," Bracamonte said. "We shared enlightening sessions in the Bilingualism Lab held at the studio, which resulted in incredible research projects we are still working on." 

One research project was recently presented in a web event. On Sept. 7, the team presented at the 14th Annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference on "Pronunciation Instruction & Implementation in the Spanish Curriculum: History & Current State" hosted at Purdue University. 

"This is one of my greatest achievements, and I thank professor Offerman deeply for her guidance and support," Carmona said.