“Bienvenidos. The first and most important sentence that we will learn is: No tener miedo de decir algo incorrecto.” The most important sentence, no doubt, because it was kind of the only full sentence we learned, and a bit unnecessary because the students had no inhibition to speak at all (albeit in English.) The first session of the cheap Spanish summer courses which the City of Santa Cruz offers to its residents (including alien non-residents like me). If it was anywhere near representative for language education around here, no wonder the white crowd in Santa Cruz is not bi-lingual.
The first hour we did the alphabet. Yes, the alphabet. You might be under the impression that the English and Spanish language share the latin alphabet. Give and take a perk here and there, like most languages that rely on the latin alphabet. But here in Santa Cruz we did an hour of learning the Spanish Alphabet. (i mean, when learning Turkish, a language that did a good job in twisting and stretching the latin alphabet, it didn’t take us an hour in class to get through the alphabet.) A list of rather random words (a – abeja, b – bicicleta,…) which got ridiculous at some point (w – waffle, cause the teacher couldn’t come up with a spanish word, and y – yoyo.) But don’t get a wrong impression, it wasn’t only about the teacher. The classmates just didn’t stop asking questions about how to pronounce this or that letter precisely. As the questions went on and on (and on…), my thoughts turned nasty – listen you guys, you’re not anywhere near the correct pronounciation, so what about shutting up now and as we actually start to speak a little bit, there will be more opportunity to practice pronounciation. But i just shut up, and let the nasty thoughts grow. The teacher, however, seemed to love this kind of attention, and continued pointing out how this letter is pronounced differently when it is followed by that letter, and how this word is pronounced differently in Nicaragua, while in Columbia they pronounce it this way, and then let’s not even talk about Spain (but meanwhile she obviously was) because that’s a different story all together (“Castilian is different from Spanish”, as she put it), cause imagine, over there they pronounce this word like that. Classmates were busy taking notes. “Oh, how interesting, so how would they pronounce this word in Mexico then?” I had my pen ostentatiously on the paper in front of me, my arms folded into each other on my desk, and kept on thinking, when is my Spanish class going to begin?
At the very end of that hour, a bit by accident, we got into the tu-usted business. You know, like tu-vous with its own idiosyncracies. Not only in Spanish in general, but to countries in particular, so before we knew it, we were on our way for another session of endless nerve-wrecking questions… “So if i’m in Venezuela and i want to address a person who looks younger than me but this person is the boss, what will i use then?” Well English i guess, cause the way this class is shaping up there’s little chance that you’ll be able to address the person in Spanish by the end of this summer, don’t worry. Could we now please start our language class? But tu-usted was too much a goldmine for trivial pursuit to be settled so soon. And i swear, it was only after the third time that i heard someone (including the teacher) mention that this was “oh so interesting” and so unlike English where we only have “you” that i intervened. “Well actually, in old English there was a very similar distinction between “thou” and “you”, only the words got collapsed into “you”. Blank looks. For a split-second i thought to say, you know, like Shakespeare, like “shall can i compare thee to a summer’s day”, but “thee” as conjugated form of “thou” would raise the confusion to unbearable levels…
The class took place in the Spanish classroom at the Santa Cruz High School on Walnut Street. The classroom is decorated with all kinds of posters and objects from Spain and Latin America. In front, above the blackboard, a large notice to remind students of the use of learning a foreign language. “10 reasons to take a foreign language at Santa Cruz High School.” number 6 reads: “It leads to a better understanding and use of English.”
As my comment kind of interrupted the fun, we moved on to the last part of the course: 40 minutes of introducing oneself in Spanish. The model phrase begins with “me llamo [name]” and since the teacher explained that this meant “my name is”, it took the class another round of confusion to figure out where the “is” figures in the sentence. Not a bad nor suprising question if you get no grammatical explanation, but there was no good answer. A total inability to provide the class with any kind of grammatical points of reference. Instead, the teacher repeated a number of times during those two hours that we didn’t have to be scared, we wouldn’t do much boring grammar. Boring grammar, says the Spanish teacher. I honestly don’t think i’ve ever had a language teacher teaching class that grammar was boring. That parts are difficult, and parts to be ignored for the moment being, yes. But boring? (on the contrary, i remember my Turkish teacher drooling over Turkish grammar, that is was the most beautiful and most logical in the world. and true enough, Turkish grammar is breath-taking, especially in the first levels of learning it, when you have to hold your breath before you speak and think of all the suffixes you need to add to the words…)
Once we got over the “me llamo” hurdle (without even mentioning the existence of reflexive verbs, simulating the students instead to learn “this expression” by heart), we sank, again a bit by accident i feel, into the deep waters of ser-estar. The preparation for the actual introduction included the teacher translating and writing words on the black board that students needed to present themselves: ama de casa, peinadora de perros, arquitecta, bibliotecaria, carpintero, maestro, etc. If you’re still following, the idea was, “me llamo [name] y yo soy [profession].” Then there’s a student who doesn’t want to do the profession thing and wants to say that he is happy. “Yo estoy feliz,” the teacher tells him. Not a chance that these things slip by in the class with neverending questions… so the rest of our time was consumed by whether “i am” is “yo soy” or “yo estoy”. Which would have been very fine, if the teacher was not so much into escaping grammar. When asked whether you could use both, she said yes. Total confusion, and as the students where trying out different combinations, she would correct them: “no, here you have to use estoy”. “Why?” “Cause it’s an expression, this is how you say it.” “But then why can’t you say…?” I was a bit on the edge of my nerves and as they went on and on (and on…), i couldn’t help intervening again. “There’s an indication for the difference: if it’s about a permanent quality, use “yo soy”, if it’s about a more temporary state of affairs, use “yo estoy” and then afterwards it gets a bit more complicated.” “How interesting,” and more sets of questions which at some point turn back to the teacher again: “Is this true?”. She nods, and goes on to dismiss the class, cause we’ve worked very hard today. (oh, i shouldn’t forget to mention that there was no homework.)
I left the classroom in a fury. This was the most miserable language class ever. And i have some experiences to compare with – i’ve taken, in chronological order, classes in french, classic greek, english, spanish, arabic, russian, italian and turkish. i’ve studied those languages in primary school (french), secundary school (greek, english), university language centers (spanish, russian), a university regular language degree course (russian), private language centers (russian, italian, turkish), and evening schools for popular education (russian, arabic). i’ve joined such classes in Belgium (french, greek, english, spanish, arabic, russian), the UK (arabic, russian), the Russian Federation (russian), the Netherlands (russian, italian), Italy (italian) and Turkey (turkish). Yet, i have never ever come across a language class that was so badly taught, and students so ill-equiped to learn a foreign language. (although now that i’m thinking about the student part, there were two elderly Brits, having lived in Cyprus for 5 years (!), who had the greatest difficulty in taking Turkish level one, to the point that the guy sighed, in exasperation (with a very british accent), “Wouldn’t it be so much easier if the Turks were to learn English?”).
Back home, after having told marÃa how i can’t continue with this class, i check the info i have from the City of Santa Cruz on their language courses. There’s no second level, this is the only course they offer each summer. My eye falls on the paper heading and in particular the Department of SC City which organizes the language courses: Parks and Recreation. Right…
