For as long as I can remember, I have always loved school. The feeling of being in a classroom, diving heart and mind first into subjects presented by accomplished professionals, and striving to obtain excellence in my education was immaculate. My drive as a young girl and young adult was to grasp as much information in each subject. Out of all my classes my French class stood out the most. In the Caribbean as you entered into secondary school you were required to take both Spanish and French. I preferred French. To me it sounded better because the teacher was more exciting. During class she would make us recite the alphabet, or other text she gave us to memorize over and over again. She would walk up and down the aisles making sure we were all speaking.
My first experience of learning a second language was definitely grammar based. But because of the craziness of the teacher it seemed like fun to me. She would randomly call students to recite things or write sentences on the board. Or she would just start telling us stories in French. I would not fully understand the stories but I loved listening to her and watching her illustrate with crazy gestures. So from my first experience in my L2 I developed my skill in listening and reading.
By the time I got to high school, my level of understanding dropped. This I think happened for a number of reasons. There was not as much authentic input during class. With my first experience I was hearing the language constantly, from the teacher and also when we had to recite. But in high school the language was only required when we had to turn in an assignment. The teacher did not make us speak in the target language very often and neither did the teacher. Another reason was the change in my environment. I moved from St. Vincent to Maryland, and that was enough for me to forget about my L2. That wasn’t a priority for me to be assimilated into the American culture so I was not motivated to use the language outside of class. The one good thing about my high school experience was that I had excellent grades in French. I am not sure how I did that.
I got to college and I didn’t know what to choose as my major. My L2 came to my rescue. Since I had excellent grades in French I was advised to continue on that tract. Now that my L2 has given me my purpose for being in college I was motivated to learn the language even more.
It wasn’t until college that I got serious about fully getting the language. What I did was I listened to how the teacher spoke; their accents, and how they used the grammar I was learning. I wanted to hear how they were saying it before I attempted to say. I would practice over and over in my room before I had to do presentations. The more I heard it being used in context the more comfortable I was using it to communicate. That’s why I have a hard time with the “passé simple” which is a tense no longer spoken today.
As I reflect on my learning French I think I need both the grammar-translation method as well as the communicative language approach. I need a balance of the two; learning the rules of the language then applying those rules in authentic situations. This happened when I did a semester in Paris. I stayed with a host family and I also took a grammar class at the Sorbonne. In this experience which lasted for about 3.5 months I felt I learned the most in my L2, compared to the previous 7 years of learning it in school. I had to figure out how to use the metro in Paris, or buy food. I had to communicate to my host family. When I got lost I had to ask for directions in French. In the classroom all instruction was in French. There was enough input for me to produce in French and that happened everyday for three months. I was the most confident at the end of that 3 months; at the airport I was able to ask for help with my ticket and baggage all in French without any mistakes.
Today I am not as confident.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Reflection on self as a language learner
I believe my first exposure to a second languge was in the seventh grade with Mrs. Timmons. I don't know why but there was something that just clicked for me. It wasn't a formal Spanish class, it was called FLEX. The county just wanted students to have exposure to different cultures. So in this program we learned the basic greetings, spent a little time in the language laboratory, and did the common ritual of visiting a Spanish restaurant. When I graduated from 8th grade I received an award for Best Spanish Student!
In high school my Spanish dropped off. My teacher wasn't very enthusiastic as in middle school, so I did enough to get by. It wasn't until college where I blossomed (hehe)into a young adult and discovered that language learning was something of interest to me. I took the basics, Spanish 101..., my first two years. In my junior I began taking advanced courses in the language. I gained a better understanding of both the language and the culutre.
When the opportunity presented itself, I arranged my financial aide and spent a semester in Seville, Spain. Looking back on it now, I wish I studied a year instead of a semester. The time spent immersed in the language and culture are invaluable. Having to use the language as a lifestyle was and is an advantage in learning the language to it fullest. My host family were generous in their hospitality and provided me with every opportunity to partake in cultural activities. I made some friends there who helped me understand the dialect of the region. It was quite difficult to understand Spanish speaking to someone with a heavy Sevillan accent.
After returning from a culture shock, I did the ultimate, I moved into the Spanish house on campus. My friends, including my twin sister, had a good time laughing at me and stating that I never returned from Spain. Whenever I would visit them at their dorms, they would always tell me to go back to Spain (aka the Spanish house). I did not want to loose what I had learned so residing their was my only option. In the house we were to only speak Spanish (a rule that was not heavily enforced). There was also an exchange student from Spain who helped us in carrying on our conversations. Again, this was an experience that was invaluable to me.
Upon completion of college I began teaching Spanish at a local high school. In order to maintain my Spanish I kept my tv on the Spanish channel, and read as much as I could. That lasted about one year and then I decided to aim high with the Air Force. I did not return to my high school, rather I became an ESL teacher for grades K-6. That was fun! To witness their little minds growing and learning due to my teaching is one reason why I have decided to focus my graduate studies on foreign language and ESL.
After four years of going into the blue(I love those air force logo:-) I had no choice but to return to teaching. This profession is the driving force behind my language learning. It disciplines me in maintaining my second language. I often find myself now being more comfortable in speaking Spanish to and for people who are unable to communicate their needs.
Well that's me!
In high school my Spanish dropped off. My teacher wasn't very enthusiastic as in middle school, so I did enough to get by. It wasn't until college where I blossomed (hehe)into a young adult and discovered that language learning was something of interest to me. I took the basics, Spanish 101..., my first two years. In my junior I began taking advanced courses in the language. I gained a better understanding of both the language and the culutre.
When the opportunity presented itself, I arranged my financial aide and spent a semester in Seville, Spain. Looking back on it now, I wish I studied a year instead of a semester. The time spent immersed in the language and culture are invaluable. Having to use the language as a lifestyle was and is an advantage in learning the language to it fullest. My host family were generous in their hospitality and provided me with every opportunity to partake in cultural activities. I made some friends there who helped me understand the dialect of the region. It was quite difficult to understand Spanish speaking to someone with a heavy Sevillan accent.
After returning from a culture shock, I did the ultimate, I moved into the Spanish house on campus. My friends, including my twin sister, had a good time laughing at me and stating that I never returned from Spain. Whenever I would visit them at their dorms, they would always tell me to go back to Spain (aka the Spanish house). I did not want to loose what I had learned so residing their was my only option. In the house we were to only speak Spanish (a rule that was not heavily enforced). There was also an exchange student from Spain who helped us in carrying on our conversations. Again, this was an experience that was invaluable to me.
Upon completion of college I began teaching Spanish at a local high school. In order to maintain my Spanish I kept my tv on the Spanish channel, and read as much as I could. That lasted about one year and then I decided to aim high with the Air Force. I did not return to my high school, rather I became an ESL teacher for grades K-6. That was fun! To witness their little minds growing and learning due to my teaching is one reason why I have decided to focus my graduate studies on foreign language and ESL.
After four years of going into the blue(I love those air force logo:-) I had no choice but to return to teaching. This profession is the driving force behind my language learning. It disciplines me in maintaining my second language. I often find myself now being more comfortable in speaking Spanish to and for people who are unable to communicate their needs.
Well that's me!
Stuggles With Spanish
My struggle to learn Spanish has been a long, arduous task that has been worth every ounce of effort that I have put into it. At this point in my life, having successfully arrived at the stage where I can comfortably read, write and speak the language has opened my eyes to a whole new world. A world that without having gone through this struggle would have never been available to me.
Starting in the 8th grade, I attended Spanish classes as a student in MCPS. Leaving in the 12th grade, I knew little more Spanish then when I had entered the system 5 years earlier. I attribute that lack of success to not caring and being a classic case of “doing just enough to not have the teacher notice my failures”.
In college I began to see the professional and cultural importance of learning Spanish. I was an International Relations major and not only was it a graduation requirement, it was a means to end. I wanted to study and live abroad.
Arriving in Spain and being forced to communicate with the natives made me realize how much Spanish I didn’t know. Throughout my travels during that year, making friends with Spaniards and attending classes at the Univ. of Alicante I picked up the language relatively well. However, as I learned a few years later, that was not the case.
Arrive to 2004. Stepping off the airplane in Tegucigalpa, Honduras was an entirely different ballgame. There, as a Peace Corps Volunteer and a representative of the United States, the expectations were much higher. I quickly realized how limited my language abilities were and how much effort and practice it would take to have a meaningful and productive experience. Fortunately the language program was stellar and provided many hours of experiential training with a small teacher to student ratio.
At this point it all seems worth while. The benefits of knowing Spanish and understanding Latino culture has raised my awareness of the world and of myself. Hopefully, as a Spanish teacher I will have the opportunity to inspire others and to open their eyes to how vast the world can be.
Starting in the 8th grade, I attended Spanish classes as a student in MCPS. Leaving in the 12th grade, I knew little more Spanish then when I had entered the system 5 years earlier. I attribute that lack of success to not caring and being a classic case of “doing just enough to not have the teacher notice my failures”.
In college I began to see the professional and cultural importance of learning Spanish. I was an International Relations major and not only was it a graduation requirement, it was a means to end. I wanted to study and live abroad.
Arriving in Spain and being forced to communicate with the natives made me realize how much Spanish I didn’t know. Throughout my travels during that year, making friends with Spaniards and attending classes at the Univ. of Alicante I picked up the language relatively well. However, as I learned a few years later, that was not the case.
Arrive to 2004. Stepping off the airplane in Tegucigalpa, Honduras was an entirely different ballgame. There, as a Peace Corps Volunteer and a representative of the United States, the expectations were much higher. I quickly realized how limited my language abilities were and how much effort and practice it would take to have a meaningful and productive experience. Fortunately the language program was stellar and provided many hours of experiential training with a small teacher to student ratio.
At this point it all seems worth while. The benefits of knowing Spanish and understanding Latino culture has raised my awareness of the world and of myself. Hopefully, as a Spanish teacher I will have the opportunity to inspire others and to open their eyes to how vast the world can be.
Reflection on Self as a Language Learner
My first exposure to a language was in junior high school when my mother insisted that I take Latin. She had taken Latin herself and believed strongly that it would help me on the verbal section of the SAT. I had a good teacher, but I couldn’t really connect with the language. It was all reading and writing, and lots of translations. I hardly remember any of the Latin I studied those two years in junior high. Like the saying goes… “amo, amas, amat,…there was some more but I forgot.”
When I started high school, I decided to take French. I just loved the way the language sounded. Plus, the Spanish teacher at my high school was notoriously bad, so that was enough to steer me away from that language. I loved French. I think it was my teacher. She was young and energetic and did everything she could to get us to speak as much as possible. While I was in high school, my family hosted an exchange student from Sweden one year and the following year an exchange student from Denmark. This made me want to become an exchange student myself. My mother refused to let me go abroad though before I finished high school, so the summer after I graduated I packed my bags and headed to a tiny village (pop. 120) in the foothills of the Alps. I remember sitting at the dinner table that first night with my French host family, feeling tongue-tied, lost and confused (despite three years of high school French), and wondering how I was ever going to be able to communicate with them, much less survive for a year in a French high school. The first two months were really hard. I nodded a lot and said “oui” to things I should have said “non” to like “Voulez-vous des cervelles de veau?” (translation: would you like some calf brain?) But it didn’t take long before my language skills improved to a level where I was able to freely converse with my host family and friends and participate in class discussions. The fact that my host family had 5 children really helped my language acquisition. They were constantly talking and badgering me with questions which forced me to talk. They also loved to correct my grammar mistakes and teach me new vocabulary.
I continued to study French in college and went back to France to study in Paris for two semesters my junior year. I had three particular professors on the program that exuded a love of the French language and had an amazing way of passing that on to their students. A few years after graduating from college, I returned to Paris to work as a teaching assistant in the English and North American Studies Department of the Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne. Teaching my native tongue to French speakers gave me a new understanding of language learning. I thoroughly enjoyed the interactions with my students and the challenge of trying to find ways to make fine-tuning their English skills fun and interesting.
The summer between the two years I was teaching in Paris, I spent a month studying intensive Spanish at a small language school in Malaga, Spain. The teachers were great and used lots of situational role plays to make us use the vocabulary and grammar that we were learning. I lived with a delightful Spanish lady. I have fond memories of watching Bay Watch dubbed in Spanish on television with her and attempting to answer her questions about life in the United States. In the month that I was in Spain, I was able to get to a level where I could understand quite well and speak at an intermediate level.
Upon returning to Paris, I wanted to continue to improve my Spanish so I put an advertisement up in the American Church to do a language exchange with a Spanish speaker. A young Venezuelan woman responded to my ad and we met weekly to exchange lessons. It was a lot of fun. I would teach her English for an hour and then we would switch and she would teach me Spanish. She had taught before and had good materials to support the lessons and the one-on-one interaction was great. We continued this about 6 months until she moved outside of Paris and it was no longer feasible.
Given that I had studied Latin and French, I found Spanish relatively easy to pick up and longed to try something more ‘foreign’. So I decided to try Japanese. I took individual lessons from an American who had lived in Japan for 10 years. I put a lot of effort into learning the hiragana and the katakana and some of the basic kanji. I remember carrying flashcards in the metro to study the letters/kanji during my long commute across Paris to work every day. My teacher was very focused on reading and writing and pronunciation, but not so much on really speaking. He also was very anti-Japanese and was constantly talking negatively about them. This discouraged me and I gave up after about 5 months.
While working in Paris, I met my husband who is Togolese. He was an experienced translator and teacher of French as a foreign language. He has been a big influence on my language acquisition because he is a language lover and speaks several languages fluently and has an intermediate level in several more. We speak to each other in French most of the time, so he has really helped me perfect my French. With him I’m not afraid to make mistakes because I know he isn’t judging me. This has allowed me to try out new words, expressions and structures that I would be afraid to with any other French speaker. He has tried to teach me his mother tongue, Mina, but without much success. I can understand enough to follow the gist of a conversation, but can’t say more than a few words and expressions. Mina is a tonal language and although I can reproduce the tones, I’ve had a hard time remembering which tone is used in which word, much to the amusement of my husband and in-laws.
From Paris, my husband and I moved to Washington, DC for graduate school. While in school, I worked as an English teacher at Berlitz Language Center. I decided to start working on my Spanish again, so I exchanged English lessons for Spanish lessons for about a year with one of my colleagues from Berlitz. I found the Berlitz method to be very effective at drilling vocabulary and grammar into your head. Since then I haven’t had much opportunity to use my Spanish as my husband and I tended to hang out mostly with French speakers so I lost a lot of what I learned. I’ve recently started trying to brush up on my Spanish so that I can speak with the teachers at my children’s bilingual preschool. I’ve been using the Rosetta Stone software and have found it very effective.
A couple of years ago I took an Arabic course for 6 months as I’ve been working on international education and development programs for many Middle Eastern countries for seven years. I loved learning to read and write the alphabet. I really want to perfect that before I continue because I find the transcriptions of the letters/sounds using the English alphabet to be very confusing and inexact. I haven’t worked on my Arabic in a while, as with three small children I just haven’t had the time to devote to it. I am determined to get back to it in the near future though.
I have also tried to learn Wolof (main local language spoken in Senegal) as my husband grew up in Senegal and speaks it well and his family lives there now. I really need to take a class from a native speaker though to get to a good level in the language as I’ve had a hard time finding good materials that I can use to practice Wolof as it is mainly an oral language.
I have loved learning French and the other languages I’ve studied. It has opened up so many doors and has enabled me to communicate with people I would not have been able to otherwise. It has also given me an insight into other cultures as language and culture are intertwined. By studying several languages I’ve learned what methods work best for me. I especially love all of the new advances in technology that have brought such active and exciting ways to learn a language.
When I started high school, I decided to take French. I just loved the way the language sounded. Plus, the Spanish teacher at my high school was notoriously bad, so that was enough to steer me away from that language. I loved French. I think it was my teacher. She was young and energetic and did everything she could to get us to speak as much as possible. While I was in high school, my family hosted an exchange student from Sweden one year and the following year an exchange student from Denmark. This made me want to become an exchange student myself. My mother refused to let me go abroad though before I finished high school, so the summer after I graduated I packed my bags and headed to a tiny village (pop. 120) in the foothills of the Alps. I remember sitting at the dinner table that first night with my French host family, feeling tongue-tied, lost and confused (despite three years of high school French), and wondering how I was ever going to be able to communicate with them, much less survive for a year in a French high school. The first two months were really hard. I nodded a lot and said “oui” to things I should have said “non” to like “Voulez-vous des cervelles de veau?” (translation: would you like some calf brain?) But it didn’t take long before my language skills improved to a level where I was able to freely converse with my host family and friends and participate in class discussions. The fact that my host family had 5 children really helped my language acquisition. They were constantly talking and badgering me with questions which forced me to talk. They also loved to correct my grammar mistakes and teach me new vocabulary.
I continued to study French in college and went back to France to study in Paris for two semesters my junior year. I had three particular professors on the program that exuded a love of the French language and had an amazing way of passing that on to their students. A few years after graduating from college, I returned to Paris to work as a teaching assistant in the English and North American Studies Department of the Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne. Teaching my native tongue to French speakers gave me a new understanding of language learning. I thoroughly enjoyed the interactions with my students and the challenge of trying to find ways to make fine-tuning their English skills fun and interesting.
The summer between the two years I was teaching in Paris, I spent a month studying intensive Spanish at a small language school in Malaga, Spain. The teachers were great and used lots of situational role plays to make us use the vocabulary and grammar that we were learning. I lived with a delightful Spanish lady. I have fond memories of watching Bay Watch dubbed in Spanish on television with her and attempting to answer her questions about life in the United States. In the month that I was in Spain, I was able to get to a level where I could understand quite well and speak at an intermediate level.
Upon returning to Paris, I wanted to continue to improve my Spanish so I put an advertisement up in the American Church to do a language exchange with a Spanish speaker. A young Venezuelan woman responded to my ad and we met weekly to exchange lessons. It was a lot of fun. I would teach her English for an hour and then we would switch and she would teach me Spanish. She had taught before and had good materials to support the lessons and the one-on-one interaction was great. We continued this about 6 months until she moved outside of Paris and it was no longer feasible.
Given that I had studied Latin and French, I found Spanish relatively easy to pick up and longed to try something more ‘foreign’. So I decided to try Japanese. I took individual lessons from an American who had lived in Japan for 10 years. I put a lot of effort into learning the hiragana and the katakana and some of the basic kanji. I remember carrying flashcards in the metro to study the letters/kanji during my long commute across Paris to work every day. My teacher was very focused on reading and writing and pronunciation, but not so much on really speaking. He also was very anti-Japanese and was constantly talking negatively about them. This discouraged me and I gave up after about 5 months.
While working in Paris, I met my husband who is Togolese. He was an experienced translator and teacher of French as a foreign language. He has been a big influence on my language acquisition because he is a language lover and speaks several languages fluently and has an intermediate level in several more. We speak to each other in French most of the time, so he has really helped me perfect my French. With him I’m not afraid to make mistakes because I know he isn’t judging me. This has allowed me to try out new words, expressions and structures that I would be afraid to with any other French speaker. He has tried to teach me his mother tongue, Mina, but without much success. I can understand enough to follow the gist of a conversation, but can’t say more than a few words and expressions. Mina is a tonal language and although I can reproduce the tones, I’ve had a hard time remembering which tone is used in which word, much to the amusement of my husband and in-laws.
From Paris, my husband and I moved to Washington, DC for graduate school. While in school, I worked as an English teacher at Berlitz Language Center. I decided to start working on my Spanish again, so I exchanged English lessons for Spanish lessons for about a year with one of my colleagues from Berlitz. I found the Berlitz method to be very effective at drilling vocabulary and grammar into your head. Since then I haven’t had much opportunity to use my Spanish as my husband and I tended to hang out mostly with French speakers so I lost a lot of what I learned. I’ve recently started trying to brush up on my Spanish so that I can speak with the teachers at my children’s bilingual preschool. I’ve been using the Rosetta Stone software and have found it very effective.
A couple of years ago I took an Arabic course for 6 months as I’ve been working on international education and development programs for many Middle Eastern countries for seven years. I loved learning to read and write the alphabet. I really want to perfect that before I continue because I find the transcriptions of the letters/sounds using the English alphabet to be very confusing and inexact. I haven’t worked on my Arabic in a while, as with three small children I just haven’t had the time to devote to it. I am determined to get back to it in the near future though.
I have also tried to learn Wolof (main local language spoken in Senegal) as my husband grew up in Senegal and speaks it well and his family lives there now. I really need to take a class from a native speaker though to get to a good level in the language as I’ve had a hard time finding good materials that I can use to practice Wolof as it is mainly an oral language.
I have loved learning French and the other languages I’ve studied. It has opened up so many doors and has enabled me to communicate with people I would not have been able to otherwise. It has also given me an insight into other cultures as language and culture are intertwined. By studying several languages I’ve learned what methods work best for me. I especially love all of the new advances in technology that have brought such active and exciting ways to learn a language.
Reflection on self as a language learner
My first memory of learning a language is taking French in high school. It was mandatory for college-prep students to take two years of a foreign language. Looking into my desired future of traveling the world, I supposed that French would be the more useful than Spanish.
I dutifully studied French by the audiolingual method favored by my instructor. I became a good reader and writer of the French language. I could also understand spoken French. However, my ability to speak French left something to be desired. Oh, I knew how to conjugate verbs and I had purposely expanded my French vocabulary. My problem was with pronunciation. I don't know how I sounded, but my speech wouldn't have fooled anyone into thinking I was a native speaker.
I continued my French lessons in college, taking three quarters of intermediate French. When I moved on to French civilization, a course taught exclusively in French by a native husband-and-wife duo, I was in too deep. My friend, Phillippe, helped me to keep my head above water in that class, but just barely. I made it to shore with a "C". That grade was below my standards, so I gave up French.
Since I loved languages, I didn't want to not study a language. I turned my attention to Spanish. I learned by the same method that was familiar from high school. There were no native Spanish speakers on campus. The professor of Spanish was the only person I knew who was fluent. It never occurred to me to engage him in conversation outside of the classroom. My average was a "B+" which pleased me.
I began working for the employment office run by the DC government shortly after graduation. When the head honcho learned that I knew some Spanish, he sent me and another woman to take classes at Berlitz. (He had a plan to provide translation services for Spanish-speaking applicants.) Once more, the old audiolingual method surfaced, but with a twist this time. The instructor wanted us to talk about our everyday lives in Spanish. Whoa! Real conversation? Who knew!
Two years later I took a trip to Europe which included a month-long stay in Spain. My friend and I had to stop in Paris on our way to Spain where I managed to pronounce French well enough to get us train tickets and a meal while we waited for our departure. My lasting memory of that experience was that of the rudeness of the French customer service reps I had to deal with at the train station.
Once I reached Spain I had to speak the language everyday in various situations. I met a woman, slightly older than me, who was from Barcelona. We became traveling companions as I had had to leave my American friend in Madrid while I toured the country. She spoke very little English. Therefore, most of our conversation was in Spanish. I eventually accompanied her home to meet her family. I got to the point where I was even dreaming in Spanish. Now that was a little unnerving because I hadn't expected that to happen.
Once I returned to the States, I didn't use Spanish unless I was in the Mt. Pleasant/Adams-Morgan neighborhood which had become a magnet for Hispanics. Now I find myself using it with my Spanish-speaking students. No full-blown conversations, mind you, just a word or two here and there. Plus, I always select the Spanish language menu at the ATM and I read with interest the signage I see in Spanish.
I believe that my limited acquisition of a second language has given me a perspective that leans toward tolerance and patience with my students. I know it's not easy. I just wish they had more time to acquire it rather than try to reach the standards imposed on them by the school systems.
I dutifully studied French by the audiolingual method favored by my instructor. I became a good reader and writer of the French language. I could also understand spoken French. However, my ability to speak French left something to be desired. Oh, I knew how to conjugate verbs and I had purposely expanded my French vocabulary. My problem was with pronunciation. I don't know how I sounded, but my speech wouldn't have fooled anyone into thinking I was a native speaker.
I continued my French lessons in college, taking three quarters of intermediate French. When I moved on to French civilization, a course taught exclusively in French by a native husband-and-wife duo, I was in too deep. My friend, Phillippe, helped me to keep my head above water in that class, but just barely. I made it to shore with a "C". That grade was below my standards, so I gave up French.
Since I loved languages, I didn't want to not study a language. I turned my attention to Spanish. I learned by the same method that was familiar from high school. There were no native Spanish speakers on campus. The professor of Spanish was the only person I knew who was fluent. It never occurred to me to engage him in conversation outside of the classroom. My average was a "B+" which pleased me.
I began working for the employment office run by the DC government shortly after graduation. When the head honcho learned that I knew some Spanish, he sent me and another woman to take classes at Berlitz. (He had a plan to provide translation services for Spanish-speaking applicants.) Once more, the old audiolingual method surfaced, but with a twist this time. The instructor wanted us to talk about our everyday lives in Spanish. Whoa! Real conversation? Who knew!
Two years later I took a trip to Europe which included a month-long stay in Spain. My friend and I had to stop in Paris on our way to Spain where I managed to pronounce French well enough to get us train tickets and a meal while we waited for our departure. My lasting memory of that experience was that of the rudeness of the French customer service reps I had to deal with at the train station.
Once I reached Spain I had to speak the language everyday in various situations. I met a woman, slightly older than me, who was from Barcelona. We became traveling companions as I had had to leave my American friend in Madrid while I toured the country. She spoke very little English. Therefore, most of our conversation was in Spanish. I eventually accompanied her home to meet her family. I got to the point where I was even dreaming in Spanish. Now that was a little unnerving because I hadn't expected that to happen.
Once I returned to the States, I didn't use Spanish unless I was in the Mt. Pleasant/Adams-Morgan neighborhood which had become a magnet for Hispanics. Now I find myself using it with my Spanish-speaking students. No full-blown conversations, mind you, just a word or two here and there. Plus, I always select the Spanish language menu at the ATM and I read with interest the signage I see in Spanish.
I believe that my limited acquisition of a second language has given me a perspective that leans toward tolerance and patience with my students. I know it's not easy. I just wish they had more time to acquire it rather than try to reach the standards imposed on them by the school systems.
Reflection on Self as a Language Learner
My experiences with learning a second language began in first grade. I remember traveling to the portable classroom where the Spanish teacher was located. Although the small details have blurred with time, I remember a month where she told us the same story every day. The story involved a man coming into a house through a chimney. You could see each of his body parts come through the opening. She had prop body parts that she would tape to the fake chimney in the classroom. In retrospect, the story was reflective of a desire to create an immersion-style classroom using visuals and gestures to communicate meaning. I wish I could remember how the story ended!
In middle and high school, I continued my study of Spanish. My fondest memories are of Señora Pan (Mrs. Baker) who truly lived her love of Spanish in her everyday life. She traveled abroad frequently and hosted exchange students in her home. She used pictures from her trips to highlight the lessons we learned in class. I remember an entire slide show of pictures of store names in Spain. Panadería, dulcería, carnicería… We thought it was a day off, but Señora Pan was a master of sneaking in learning when we least expected it. She just talked and joked with us, using a mixture of natural tenses that always reinforced our recent lessons. Señora Pan’s influence changed my life, leading me to choose the teaching profession.
While in college, I chose to study abroad in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I was fortunate to select that particular program because Santiago is home to very few English speakers. When traveling to Sevilla and Barcelona, which seemed full of American students, I felt grateful for a town where the focus was not as much on international tourism.
After teaching Spanish to middle school students for four years, I know that I have not maintained the fluency level of my college years. Although my ability to use past subjunctive is shaky, I am an expert on colors, numbers, and TPR vocabulary! To remedy this problem, I have been working hard to read extensively in Spanish. While my students read from my collection of children’s books each week, I read novels that they recognize. They loved to ask me questions as I read Stargirl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 because they have read these books in English. Although these books are for children, they have the variety of structures and vocabulary I need to grow in my language abilities.
In middle and high school, I continued my study of Spanish. My fondest memories are of Señora Pan (Mrs. Baker) who truly lived her love of Spanish in her everyday life. She traveled abroad frequently and hosted exchange students in her home. She used pictures from her trips to highlight the lessons we learned in class. I remember an entire slide show of pictures of store names in Spain. Panadería, dulcería, carnicería… We thought it was a day off, but Señora Pan was a master of sneaking in learning when we least expected it. She just talked and joked with us, using a mixture of natural tenses that always reinforced our recent lessons. Señora Pan’s influence changed my life, leading me to choose the teaching profession.
While in college, I chose to study abroad in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I was fortunate to select that particular program because Santiago is home to very few English speakers. When traveling to Sevilla and Barcelona, which seemed full of American students, I felt grateful for a town where the focus was not as much on international tourism.
After teaching Spanish to middle school students for four years, I know that I have not maintained the fluency level of my college years. Although my ability to use past subjunctive is shaky, I am an expert on colors, numbers, and TPR vocabulary! To remedy this problem, I have been working hard to read extensively in Spanish. While my students read from my collection of children’s books each week, I read novels that they recognize. They loved to ask me questions as I read Stargirl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 because they have read these books in English. Although these books are for children, they have the variety of structures and vocabulary I need to grow in my language abilities.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
I still can't speak French!!1
French was my first attempt at speaking a language other than English. I went to a French preschool, so I always think that subconsciously pushed me into taking French as a requirement for my middle school language. Of course, being from Ohio, the only other language you could take was Spanish, so I preferred to follow my French fantasy of leaving the midwest. My teacher was very effective in maintaining interest in the language. We did a lot of role playing and hands-on activities. In high school, I continued monotonously taking French classes because I liked the language and I was good at the grammar puzzles, yet I could speak almost no French.
In college, I studied abroad in Tours, France, where I had a knack for writing excellent papers about 14th century French literature and the problems of Modern France. My professors were quite impressed with this and encouraged me to stick with it. French Literature became one of my majors, yet I still could not speak it.
Next, after attending a Peace Corps recruitment fair, it was suggested that I go to a francophone country because I “spoke” French. So, I went to Mali, West Africa, where I refused to speak French because no one in my village spoke French, and it was the language associated with colonization and the “tubabus”. I learned Bambara and Minianka and became quite good at the proverbs. Furthermore, I tried to learn Minianka because it was an oral language used by a minority, and, by learning that language, I would gain the hearts of my villagers. I learned so quickly because it was an emergency situation and I had to speak Bambara to communicate because there was no one to translate anything. It all had to be mimed. I also learned the language from the little children in my village who would come talk to me literally all the time Because I was teaching school in Barbara, I wasn’t intimidated by the children, and they would correct me. Immediate correction of pronunciated mistakes is a wonderful thing that I found that adults won’t do. Adults are trying so hard to understand what you are saying, that they never correct you, and you never get better. I was never corrected in a non-threatening way when I spoke French
When I returned from the Peace Corps, I couldn’t do much with my Minianka and my Bambara, so I wanted to learn Spanish. Because I had learned so much from immersion in Africa, I took a teaching position in Guatemala. Without knowing a word of Spanish, I went there to teach. I asked my friend to give me conversation classes, and I learned to speak with no formal instruction. I also met my husband, and our common language was Spanish, which helped heighten the sense of urgency of learning the language.
However, my husband is Brazilian. So, when we got married, and moved to Brazil, I was faced with Portuguese. Nonetheless, northeastern Brazilian Portuguese is very different from the original language as known. I morphed my Spanish into some kind of Portuguese and decided to take some Masters classes in the University. These classes helped me immensely with reading and writing because I had never had a formal class. When I got a job as a telephone operator in a hotel, I learned more of the provincial accents and pronunciations.
Finally, what really helped me increase my Portuguese vocabulary and fluency was time and breadth of experiences. After having my daughter in Brazil, I had worked in a hotel and in schools, been in the hospital system, the government, and the university. All of these different environments carried with them different procedures, different protocol and different vocabulary.
Ironically, I can speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Bambara and Minianka, but I still can not write correctly anyone of them. The language that I can write correctly is French, which I can’t speak.
Reflection on Self as a Language Learner
My experience as a language learner dates back to just several years after I was born. My father was in the military at the time and for four years of my childhood my family was stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. During that time my parents chose to live off-base in a small German neighborhood and my mother would take me to the local bakery everyday after kindergarten. At six years old, I remember being nervous and unsure at first but was eventually placing our orders in German on my own. As a child, I needed reinforcement and confidence to speak another language, which I believe holds true at any age. My family moved back to the United States two years later and the only German I remember today is “acht weis brotien bitte” translated, “may I have eight white rolls please.”
It was almost ten years later when I would have my next experience as a language learner, this time in my freshman year of high school. I had a variety of teachers during four years of Spanish levels one through four; each had their own “unique” and entertaining qualities. The most common feeling though, was that my classmates and I didn’t think we were learning anything at the time. We focused mostly on grammar, straight from the text, and some days we would get to watch a Spanish soap opera but that was just a break from boring lectures and book exercises. My own past classroom experience has taught me the necessity of providing a variety of activities for covering material in order to keep the student’s attention and interest.
In order to fulfill the language requirement in college, I enrolled in the second part of an introductory Spanish class for review. From day one, my professor spoke nothing but Spanish to us during class. Quite a change from high school! While it was intimidating and challenging at first, I started to get used to it. We knew from the beginning of the semester not to rely on English during class, so we never became accustomed to that crutch. Because it was uncomfortable at first, the general reaction about this professor was negative. She was "too hard, strict, overboard, serious" - you name it, she was called it. I agreed that it was a difficult introductory course, but I thought she was a great teacher. I respected her for not letting all of us sail through the basics. While strict in her no-English rules, she was also very patient with everyone. She handled the variety of skill levels very well and was positive with everyone. I eventually signed up for more of her classes throughout my college years and she became one of my favorite and most challenging professors in my four years there. The passion that she showed everyday in the classroom made her an effective teacher semester after semester. Her passion had sparked us all as students; we now had more confidence in our language skills because she was constantly encouraging us to practice aloud in class (and in Spanish) at all times. After the semester, it was easy to look back and appreciate the challenge because of the effective results her methods produced.
Graduation from college began my three year hiatus from the language. Instead of continuing with my Spanish, I started working for an accounting firm where my only exposure to the language was an occasional lease agreement that I was asked to translate at work. It took me a while to realize that lease agreements in English are next to impossible to understand, and now I had to read a language I hadn’t practiced in several years. There went my confidence in Spanish!
This past February I quit my accounting job and enjoyed my most recent language learning experience while living in Barcelona, Spain for five weeks. It was so interesting to learn about the language priorities of the population there. The order of importance for the majority population in Barcelona is to speak Catalan first, then English, and then Spanish. What I found most often was a surprising number of people that speak all three languages in addition to others! I’m convinced that once a person acquires a second language, it becomes easier each time an additional language is attempted. As much as possible, I tried to use the little Spanish I remembered and slowly it came back to me. After only 5 weeks abroad, I felt more and more comfortable; successfully getting through restaurants, the pharmacy, the post office, etc. I believe that a great tool for practicing a second language is the opportunity for immersion. I traveled to Spain thinking that I could read and understand the language well but once I got there I had a hard time adjusting to the variety of accents and speed at which people were speaking. During my time in Spain, I thought speaking aloud was intimidating at first, but much like my college Spanish classes, the more I did it, the more confidence I gained to do it again.
Clearly, I still have a long way to go before being able to say that I am “fluent” in Spanish, even though I have been studying it for a while now. The on-again, off-again learning has not proven to be successful for me and that is another experience I will take with me into the classroom. My future ESOL students will need just as much practice with their second language as I do with mine.
It was almost ten years later when I would have my next experience as a language learner, this time in my freshman year of high school. I had a variety of teachers during four years of Spanish levels one through four; each had their own “unique” and entertaining qualities. The most common feeling though, was that my classmates and I didn’t think we were learning anything at the time. We focused mostly on grammar, straight from the text, and some days we would get to watch a Spanish soap opera but that was just a break from boring lectures and book exercises. My own past classroom experience has taught me the necessity of providing a variety of activities for covering material in order to keep the student’s attention and interest.
In order to fulfill the language requirement in college, I enrolled in the second part of an introductory Spanish class for review. From day one, my professor spoke nothing but Spanish to us during class. Quite a change from high school! While it was intimidating and challenging at first, I started to get used to it. We knew from the beginning of the semester not to rely on English during class, so we never became accustomed to that crutch. Because it was uncomfortable at first, the general reaction about this professor was negative. She was "too hard, strict, overboard, serious" - you name it, she was called it. I agreed that it was a difficult introductory course, but I thought she was a great teacher. I respected her for not letting all of us sail through the basics. While strict in her no-English rules, she was also very patient with everyone. She handled the variety of skill levels very well and was positive with everyone. I eventually signed up for more of her classes throughout my college years and she became one of my favorite and most challenging professors in my four years there. The passion that she showed everyday in the classroom made her an effective teacher semester after semester. Her passion had sparked us all as students; we now had more confidence in our language skills because she was constantly encouraging us to practice aloud in class (and in Spanish) at all times. After the semester, it was easy to look back and appreciate the challenge because of the effective results her methods produced.
Graduation from college began my three year hiatus from the language. Instead of continuing with my Spanish, I started working for an accounting firm where my only exposure to the language was an occasional lease agreement that I was asked to translate at work. It took me a while to realize that lease agreements in English are next to impossible to understand, and now I had to read a language I hadn’t practiced in several years. There went my confidence in Spanish!
This past February I quit my accounting job and enjoyed my most recent language learning experience while living in Barcelona, Spain for five weeks. It was so interesting to learn about the language priorities of the population there. The order of importance for the majority population in Barcelona is to speak Catalan first, then English, and then Spanish. What I found most often was a surprising number of people that speak all three languages in addition to others! I’m convinced that once a person acquires a second language, it becomes easier each time an additional language is attempted. As much as possible, I tried to use the little Spanish I remembered and slowly it came back to me. After only 5 weeks abroad, I felt more and more comfortable; successfully getting through restaurants, the pharmacy, the post office, etc. I believe that a great tool for practicing a second language is the opportunity for immersion. I traveled to Spain thinking that I could read and understand the language well but once I got there I had a hard time adjusting to the variety of accents and speed at which people were speaking. During my time in Spain, I thought speaking aloud was intimidating at first, but much like my college Spanish classes, the more I did it, the more confidence I gained to do it again.
Clearly, I still have a long way to go before being able to say that I am “fluent” in Spanish, even though I have been studying it for a while now. The on-again, off-again learning has not proven to be successful for me and that is another experience I will take with me into the classroom. My future ESOL students will need just as much practice with their second language as I do with mine.
Reflection on Self as a Language Learner
Having grown up in Reading, Pennsylvania, which is near Lancaster in the heart of Pennsylvania “Dutch” (that is, Deutsch or German) Country, I was required to study German starting in seventh grade, continuing with the same teacher through my senior year.
Frau Braun taught us through a combination of methods. Given the era in which she was teaching, the audiolingual method was predominant in her class. I still often find myself thinking, “Mann kann den larm ja shon von der strasse aushoren,” or “One can hear the noise all the way from the street.” Needless to say, I have found that extremely useful over the years.
She also brought various other methods into her class, including grammar-translation and communicative techniques. We used oral repetition, studied the rules of grammar, and translated texts, but she also required us to bring new articles to class and report on them to the class. We also discussed everyday issues such as the success of the school sports teams. By senior year I was reading Goethe in the original and could carry on a decent conversation.
I went to Germany alone for a few weeks in my early twenties and knew German well enough to travel around the country, book hotels, order food in restaurants, shop, and have casual talks. I loved being able to use my knowledge of German in a real-life situation, although I was surprised at not being able to speak and understand more successfully given my relatively advanced reading ability. Working with ESOL students, I now understand that it is typical for some students (in my class, some Korean students) to be much better at reading and writing than they are at speaking as a result of the type of schooling they have had.
Frau Braun taught us through a combination of methods. Given the era in which she was teaching, the audiolingual method was predominant in her class. I still often find myself thinking, “Mann kann den larm ja shon von der strasse aushoren,” or “One can hear the noise all the way from the street.” Needless to say, I have found that extremely useful over the years.
She also brought various other methods into her class, including grammar-translation and communicative techniques. We used oral repetition, studied the rules of grammar, and translated texts, but she also required us to bring new articles to class and report on them to the class. We also discussed everyday issues such as the success of the school sports teams. By senior year I was reading Goethe in the original and could carry on a decent conversation.
I went to Germany alone for a few weeks in my early twenties and knew German well enough to travel around the country, book hotels, order food in restaurants, shop, and have casual talks. I loved being able to use my knowledge of German in a real-life situation, although I was surprised at not being able to speak and understand more successfully given my relatively advanced reading ability. Working with ESOL students, I now understand that it is typical for some students (in my class, some Korean students) to be much better at reading and writing than they are at speaking as a result of the type of schooling they have had.
Reflection on Self as a Language Learner
"In view of her penchant for something romantic,
DeSade is too trenchant and Dickens too frantic,
And Stendhal would ruin the plan of attack
As there isn't much blue in"The Red and the Black."
-A Little Night Music
"My final thought is a simple but mighty one: it is the obligation we have been given.
It is to not turn out the same. It is to grow, to accomplish, to change the world."
-Merrily We Roll Along
Both quotes from: http://www.sjsondheim.com/contrib.html
I am motivated to learn by a seemingly unquenchable desire to understand language, as such, having to reflect on my experience learning languages is a fun exercise for me! As long as I can remember, words, and their meaning, have ruled my life. I have always processed language as literally as possible and at times this has wreaked havoc upon my world. But there have been other, truly glorious moments of clarity, where the meaning of a word, the use of language, or the subtle suggestion of an alternative idea based on language use, has made me feel as if I have learned something truly meaningful.
I began this reflection with two quotes from works by Stephen Sondheim because he exemplifies what motivates me to learn. He is also a "master" of the written word and when I grow up, I want to be just like him!. In the first quote from “A Little Night Music”, one can only understand Sondheim’s lyrics if one understands his references. A reading of Stendhal as a prelude to romance would impede the character’s seduction of his wife, because The Red and the Black is a fairly depressing oeuvre which ends with the death of the main characters! It would clearly make one sad and blue. Sondheim, however, extends his “play on words” with the word blue. A cursory reading of the verse would fit Stendhal; but, Sondheim is using the informal definition of blue as well. I was a teenager when I first saw the musical and nothing can quite match my feeling of pride when I realized I understood the shades of meaning contained in the lyrics. I am still motivated by a search for that feeling – the moment of clarity created when knowledge really takes root and one’s world of knowledge is changed.
Oddly enough, an uncomfortable learning experience with the English language further motivated my foreign language learning experience(s). I have faced one challenge in my life as a learner: in the 6th grade, my Social Studies teacher told me that I needed to have speech therapy because I didn’t speak well enough for someone “my age”. She was focused on my lisp. I would probably have forgotten this by now, but she said this to me in class, in front of my peers. I was devastated. I was a talker, a student who always raised her hand and sought to contribute to the class discussion. But for quite some time afterwards, I was quiet in that class. I felt funny, odd, and different.
When I took SPED 201 during the summer of 2006, I even mentioned this in class and I implored my classmates to never single out a child so publicly when it came to a “disability” or “difference”. It wasn’t until I started taking French that I began to feel a bit more comfortable with the way I sound when speaking. Living in the country for three years, and building friendships with French speakers also helped me overcome my fear. A lisp is actually quite helpful for pronouncing words in the Romance Languages. I think that is why I am a passionate French speaker today – I don’t sound odd in French.
Having studied French for the past 30 years, and a little Spanish and Italian here and there, I can honestly say that languages are our passport to the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)