From the desk of Hope…
This year for spring break my family decided to go to the Dominican Republic with three families from our neighborhood. We had a wonderful time at the beautiful resort Casa de Campo.
The thing I was not prepared for was the language barrier. I am not sure how I missed this in the trip planning and research but it was clear…in the DR people in general speak Spanish, Italian and French. There seemed to be no time for slow talking Americans. We were the minorities!
Do you know who Ellie Mae Clampett is?
This is who I felt like at times.
I was informed about the medications I should take for Malaria, I was informed NOT to drink the water and I knew about the difference in currency but somehow I did not know to brush up on my Spanish.
Just for fun, I studied this language barrier all week. I thought about things like: How are we doing communicating with people who do not speak English? What strategies are we using? How is the authentic context affecting our success? What are the priorities when communicating with people who do not speak the same language? Is this what our ELL students feel like?
A Few Things I Noticed:
- Listening Skills: When you are communicating with someone who does not speak the same language, every word is important so engagement level needs to be intense.
- Patience: Frustration will get you no where. Perseverance, calmness and composure are important when trying to make sense of what is being said.
- Observation Skills: People tend to use their hands and body language to “tell you things.” They point and act things out to help you understand.
- Key Vocabulary Words: cuarto de bano, agua, comida, cervesa, vino, bueno, playa, dinero and gracias were very important words to learn QUICKLY.
- Context: This was not a contrived setting. The experiences were real and authentic. This may have been the most important factor in learning the language at a fast rate.
As the week went on I became incensed with my high school Spanish teacher. Conjugating verbs didn’t help me get it. The many worksheets we did in class didn’t get it either and going up to the board to fill in the blanks was a waste of time. I learned NOTHING in my high school Spanish classes that helped me on this trip.
Based on this spring break experience, it appears that genuine conversations within an authentic context is a very efficient way of learning Spanish. This raises my curiosity about best practices when teaching a foreign language in an artificial setting such as the four walls of school. Short of taking students on a field trip out of the country, how do you create lessons, situations and experiences that maximize performance when learning a second language in a school setting? Just wondering.
So How did We Fare As Minorities?
By the end of our visit to the DR, we were putting together sentences. The key vocabulary words we initially learned were now being connected with other parts of speech. We were able to build some (very) basic syntactical structures in order to communicate!
No malo por una semana! (Not bad for only a week!)
Good afternoon! Two years ago I spent 8 days in the Dominican Republic. Luckily, I did travel with someone fluent in Spanish. It is reassuring and there is a feeling of security when someone you are with speaks the language. We stayed at the Excellence Resort in Punta Cana. The staff there spoke exceptional English, but outside of the resort English was basically non-existent. I did take 4 years of high school Spanish and actually learned a lot. I have also spent time over the past several years in Costa Rica and Honduras and was amazed at how much Spanish I still remembered. My Spanish teacher was passionate about the language which I’m sure made a difference in the quality of her teaching. That seems like a good lesson to learn…perhaps the more passionate you are about what you teach, the better teacher you will be. Even though I remembered some of the language, I of course was lost at times. As an adult you tend to forget how students learning new and sometimes foreign concepts feel, especially when they have no background knowledge. It is valuable to me to occasionally experience situations where I am “lost” and feel incompetent in order to remind me how my students feel at times.
Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip and even learned some Spanish.
Hasta luego! -Allison
Allison,
Thanks for your post.I t sounds like you are well traveled! I was just amazed at how quickly we caught on to the language due to being in the context of daily living. I have a 13 year old son that had some spanish in elementary school and is now in his second year of spanish in middle school. He already knows way more spanish than me and felt very comfortable in the DR. I think times have changed with the way foreign language is taught as well as how early students are exposed. I didn’t take my first class until 9th grade and then, like I said in the blog, it was only working with grammar. I don’t remember having any conversations using the language.
It was great to hear from you!