Empezamos una nueva unidad, which means it is absolutely imperative we do our best to continue recycling what we’ve learned so far. Turn to a fresh page en tus apuntes (in your notes) and do the following exercise. Take a moment to generate a short list of things you’ve picked up so far. Can you recall 10 vocab words you’ve learned in the past several weeks without looking back in your notes? Can you categorize them according to noun, adjective, verb, etc? How many stem-changing verbs and go-yo verbs can you and your colega list? Can you conjugate them with close to 100% accuracy by yourself? Can you name all of the possessive adjectives? (My, your, his/her, our, their en español) Can you discuss the difference between ser and estar?
To circle back to the idea of #unlearning, we must break the old, bad habit of “compartmentalizing” our learning. When we trudge from unit to unit, cram and dump for tests, and fail to realize that everything we learn in one unit is crucial knowledge for the next one, el resultado is minimal retention of knowledge and skills, and maximum estrés y frustración. Here are three ideas to ensure you make your learning more sustainable and less stressful:
In order to be un/a hispanohablante exitoso/a, you must #unlearn, or #desaprender, everything you do to create language. To speak Spanish effectively, for example, you must modify your facial and lingual muscle usage (recall the history of the pronunciation of “r” in English), and your overall phonology must completely change. To write in Spanish effectively, your approach to syntax and grammar must also do a 180º turn...sometimes literally! Do you recall the Ted Talk video you watched last week about los tres tipos de bilingües? The third type, “subordinate bilingual”, in which you filter a new language through your native language, is the bilingual category under which most of you fall, and it presents a variety of desafíos that leads to a lot of frustration.
Think of anytime you’ve had to write para la clase de español. Did you think about your idea in Spanish? In all likelihood, you came up with your idea in English, and then dump Spanish hot sauce all over it. En el pasado, whenever I’ve given my students a writing assignment, many have asked if they can write their assignment en inglés and then translate it a español. My answer to this question is simply: NO. ¿Por qué? Because every single time that approach is employed, their process is dominated by their English brain, their product ends up being very poor, and as a result, so does their grade, resulting in el enojo
Here I see dos cosas that we need to address. Primero, teachers must be careful when teaching students how to translate and interpret language. Segundo, students must work to be resilient when it comes to writing in Spanish, using known vocabulary and grammar to provide an accurate snapshot of their level of proficiency at any given time along the Spanish learning journey. Claro, this will seem very limiting at first, pero con paciencia y esfuerza, you will start to feel yourself improve
Les invito a todos mis estudiantes a hacer lo siguiente in order to improve their Spanish speaking and writing skills: limit yourself to using Google Translate or any comparable web service as much as you can. Try only using it to look up nouns and adjectives, and do your best to instead use el vocabulario, verb conjugations, and verb constructions that you’ve learned in class or have en tus apuntes. Essentially, this means you have to #keepitsimple when it comes to speaking and writing Spanish, and to #usewhatyouknow so that you establish a foundation upon which you will build more knowledge and skills. Besides, any halfway-decent profesor de español can always tell when a student writes an entire assignment in English, copies and pastes it in Google Translate, and copies and pastes its translation back into their document! 😜
Ay, ¡ya está aquí el año escolar! Seems like el verano passes us by at lightning speed, ¿no? Especially when you spend those summer months not doing homework and studying for tests, ¿verdad? (right?) Speaking of which, have you ever heard of “Summer learning loss”? Also referred to as “Summer slide”, it is the loss of academic skills and content knowledge that occurs durante los meses del verano (during the Summer months). This phenomenon can vary from person to person depending on a variety of factors, including but not limited to dieta, sleep schedule, and what one chooses to do during time off from school. Summer learning loss can also vary across grade level and subject matter.
Ever since this phenomenon caught the attention of education researchers in 1906, studies have found that on average, American students lose about a month’s worth of academic progress and skills, and that it occurs at a higher rate in high school (Cooper, et. al.––as cited in Quinn, 2014). Let’s harvest our own examples. Remember the Spanish final you crammed for several months back? How much of that stuff do you remember? ¡Eso exactamente! (That's it exactly!)
To combat this loss of knowledge and skills, here are three suggestions to help you return to academic form in the next couple of weeks:
Al cabo de todo, tú tienes el poder de controlar tu destino. ¡Feliz año escolar! ¡A trabajar!
Bibliografía
Quinn, D.M. & Polikoff, M. (2014). Summer learning loss: what is it, and what can we do about it? Brookings Institution. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/summer-learning-loss-what-is-it- and-what-can-we-do-about-it/