My experiences as a language learner in Spain

As there is not enough space in the article for the NLE newsletter, I’d like to use this blog entry to relate some of the experiences I had as a language learner during the Vergilian Society tour of Spain. I had spent the previous year-plus studying Spanish intensively in preparation for this trip. When I finally got to use the language in Spain, many of my experiences reinforced for me – in some cases quite dramatically – some basic principles that we as language teachers profess.

A LITTLE LANGUAGE GOES A LONG WAY

Perhaps the most important language take-away from my two weeks in Spain was that even though my Spanish is very decidedly intermediate (between B2 and C1 on a good day), nevertheless it made my trip exponentially richer. During the tour, I had many dozens of conversations with taxi drivers, fellow passengers on busses and subways, patrons at the laundromat, people in the street, etc, etc. It was this meaningful contact with people from all walks of life that was one of the most rewarding and exhilarating parts of the trip. But, of course, very little of this could have happened if I had known no Spanish at all. Our interactions would have been limited to polite smiles and a few halting words.

This is an important lesson for us as language teachers—even teachers of classical languages. We are often so focused on goals like AP scores, proficiency levels, biliteracy seals, etc., that we can lose sight of the fact that any level of language can give a student some degree of access to what might otherwise be completely inaccessible. This is no less true for Latin, Greek, and other classical languages, than it is for modern languages. A student who has had only a year or two of the language might be able to read an inscription on a tour of Europe or in a museum, help explain a word etymology in a history or English class, follow a commentary on a classical text, or participate in a discussion of the underlying text in a biblical study group. This is all real, meaningful contact with the language, and none of it requires advanced proficiency.

MISTAKES ARE FINE

An axiom of modern language pedagogy is that mistakes are part of the language learning process, and that students should be encouraged to express themselves in the target language without fear of ridicule. This is not difficult to understand in theory, but experiencing it firsthand is another level of understanding. During my trip to Spain, there were many occasions where I had a pressing need to get information across and – because of time constraints or other pressures – did so in less-than-perfect Spanish. Nevertheless, “this train to arrive at Antocha station,” “do you know what functions this machine,” and “excuse me, where to find the ticket window,” all conveyed the information I intended and elicited the desired responses. As classical language teachers, this is a lesson we would do well to learn. In addition to traditional composition exercises (and I am in no way impugning traditional pedagogy in the Latin classroom here) we should be allowing our students to simply express themselves in the target language—without the need for it to be perfect. This is a normal and important part of the language learning process.

ANXIETY

Another axiom of language pedagogy is that high stress levels negatively impact language learning. And boy did I experience this firsthand! While chatting with taxi drivers about Spanish politics or the prevalence of Uber in their city, I was super relaxed. It didn’t matter to me if I understood every word. I was following the conversation, and contributing with adequate – if not always perfect – Spanish. The truth is that I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I had worked on the language for more than a year, and this was now allowing me to function in a wide range of settings and communicate with a wide variety of people.

In marked contrast to this, there was an incident that occurred after I reunited with the Vergilian Society tour after a short separation from the group. Apparently, the group was having a difficult time conveying important logistical information to their hired driver and had told him that I knew Spanish. So when I met the bus in the parking lot of our next tour stop, the driver shot out of the bus and immediately started grilling me in Spanish—Spanish that seemed to be at the speed of light. Between the speed of the language, the urgency with which he as expressing it, and – perhaps most of all – the fact that the situation called for me to understand nearly every word, my brain just shut down. He might as well have been speaking gibberish! The difference could not have been more marked between this and the relaxed conversations I had been having with taxistas, et al.

As teachers of classical languages, we so often we expect perfection. We focus on errors and what the student can’t do. Perhaps we should ask ourselves what are the benefits of such an orientation and what are the costs. At the very least, we should acknowledge that anxiety is the enemy of language learning. We definitely should celebrate what the students can do. We should show our students the joy in learning.

PRONUNCIATION MATTERS

One of the strangest language moments of the tour was during Saturday services at a synagogue in Madrid. Presumably the majority of non-Spanish visitors to this synagogue are from Israel, because I was repeatedly mistaken for an Israeli and people automatically spoke to me in Hebrew. The first time this happened was when someone approached me with a question. As would happen the rest of the day, he immediately began speaking to me in Hebrew. But in this case it was Hebrew with an extremely heavy Spanish accent. It took me quite a while to even register what language he was speaking in. It was a very strange experience: my Hebrew is not bad and I probably knew every word the person was saying. But something like the following was running through my mind: “Wait! Everything he’s saying is extremely familiar. Why aren’t I able to put the words together?!” Once I realized it was Hebrew, the problem evaporated.

I believe there’s a lesson here for language instructors, especially classical language instructors. There is growing research that shows phonetic cues are one of the primary mechanisms for helping to code switch from one language to another. Teachers who read or (even more strangely) speak Latin or Greek to their students with very heavy English or American accents are doing their students a disservice. Regardless of which pronunciation system we as Latin teachers use, we should make the greatest effort to be sure our phonology is accurate and consistent, and that we are not treating Latin like it’s English with case endings. Latin is a language, not a series of mathematical formulae to be learned. As such, our students’ brains come equipped with some very powerful mechanisms with which learn it. To not take advantage of them to their fullest extent is the height of folly.