
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990                   TAG: 9004250078
SECTION: FOUNDERS DAY '90                    PAGE: VT9   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FERNANDEZ WINS WINE AWARD FOR TEACHING

Antonia A. Fernandez's "outstanding teaching during his 11 years at Virginia Tech, his pioneering work in encouraging oral-proficiency courses and methods in foreign language teaching, his outreach work with high school teachers and with Tech faculty and extension workers on international assignments, and his research accomplishments" earned him one of this year's three W.E. Wine Awards.

Fernandez, an associate professor of Spanish who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, teaches everything from first-year Spanish to graduate courses, including language, civilization and literature. He consistently gets high ratings on student evaluations, and participants in his intensive seminars write such things as "I would take a thousand classes under him if possible." He has received the University Certificate of Teaching Excellence three times since 1989, the maximum allowed under current guidelines.

"He consistently has been recognized by students and peers alike as clear, well organized and dynamic," the writer of the nomination said. ". . . It is evident that he puts his students at ease while capturing their attention and arousing in them enthusiasm for the subject matter at all levels of instruction.

Fernandez has a love of teaching, an inner drive to help people understand."

"It doesn't matter how good your class was last Friday or last Wednesday," he said. "You have to get the class to learn as much as possible from each particular unit of instruction."

Fernandez also has been a leader in developing oral-proficiency training in Virginia. The system, Fernandez said, provides a scientific way to test and ascertain the oral proficiency of a person. Fernandez was the first Virginian to be certified as an oral-proficiency examiner by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. He has introduced oral-proficiency courses at Tech and has used his experience to help train Virginia foreign-language teachers.

He helped initiate and is now director of the Intensive Second Language Institute at Tech, a summer program for graduate students and teachers seeking recertification. The program attracts teachers from Virginia and other states. This year the program expands to include Latin as well as Spanish and French.

Fernandez has taught conversational courses for those planning international service. He and a colleague in plant pathology and physiology developed instructional materials in Spanish dealing with plant diseases so that Tech's extension workers could help improve food production abroad.

His research is mostly in contemporary Spanish-American prose fiction, particularly the novels of Hilda Perera-Soto. Besides articles, essays and reviews, he has written two books, one on the Cuban revolutionary novel and one a translation into Spanish of a scholarly book on Spanish medieval verse. He is collaborating with two colleagues on a book of essays called Approaches to Foreign Languages Teaching.

The Wine Award of $1,000 is made possible by a gift from the University Alumni Association in memory of William E. Wine, a former rector of the Board of Visitors.

by CNB