Menu

Proyecto Visión 21

Bridge-builders promote Spanish among American professionals

Last week I attended a language training seminar on teaching Spanish to adult, English-speaking professionals. The seminar was organized by a diverse group of people interested in promoting new techniques to teach Spanish to monolingual English-speaking Americans.

The group included college professors, housewives, young students, retired persons, ski instructors, experts on water conservation, small business owners, participants in international aid projects, volunteers at local hospitals, and directors of nonprofit organizations.

They were all born in the United States. For all of them, English is their native tongue and Spanish is a second language. They all believe it will be of great benefit for our country if business people, politicians, and religious and community leaders would learn some basic Spanish.

I was the only one of the group not born in the United States and speaking Spanish as my native tongue. Because of that, I was in a privileged situation to analyze why this group was so vehemently in favor of teaching Spanish at hospitals, churches, jails, police and fire departments, and schools.

I thought they wanted to teach Spanish for financial gain, but that’s not the case. All of the members of this group enjoy a good standard of living and they established self-imposed restrictions on how much they can charge for their services. They charge very little, and even less if the service is for a nonprofit organization.

What’s their motivation, then? To answer that question, I decided to find out what all the participants in the group had in common and I discovered they are all college-educated, they travel or have traveled frequently to other countries, they speak at least one more language in addition to English and Spanish, and they participate in community or educational projects.

In addition, they all have experienced the frustration of trying to learn a language using the traditional approach (grammar memorization, cultural decontextualization), and they all enjoyed the successful moment of being able to communicate in Spanish with Spanish-speakers, here or in Latin America or Spain.

They are motivated, then, because they know what works and what it doesn’t work for adults trying to learn Spanish. After years of academic research, they have developed their own practical teaching techniques, focusing on communication and cultural understanding, and not on perfect grammar or pronunciation.

They also know monolingual and monocultural adults can learn a second language in just a few weeks (not necessarily using traditional methodologies). And they emphasized the goal is not to become a translator (that’s a different skill), but to become a “bridge” between languages and cultures.

It was good to see the dedication of this group (formed eight years ago) to its mission of promoting the Spanish-language among English-speaking professionals. It was also good to hear numerous stories and examples of success.

The same group also teaches English to Latin American immigrants. They use the same innovative techniques to help Latinos learn English and to develop a solid understanding of the American culture. It was good to meet these bridge-builders.

Go Back

Comment

Blog Search

Blog Archive

Comments

There are currently no blog comments.