A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a posting that caught my attention regarding a list serve of foreign language teachers. One teacher commented that a student’s mother, a native Spanish speaker, questioned her pedagogy. Although the student became more fluent in Spanish, the mother’s concern derived from her daughter’s inability to conjugate verbs and appropriately applying grammatical rules while speaking Spanish. Consequently, the teacher was offended because she focused on the speaking rather than the grammatical aspect of the language. My instant reaction led me to question why this native Spanish speaking mother failed to initially teach her daughter Spanish. Thereupon, I began to ponder what foreign language teachers should focus on? Should foreign language teachers focus their pedagogy based on the student’s ability to speak or the grammatical theory behind the language?
That same day, one of my college classmates announced that she had taken a Spanish teaching test that certified her to teach foreigners in Mexico. Unfortunately she did not pass the test because she could not come up with superlative words commonly used in the Spanish language. Obviously she was puzzled since she considered herself a “qualified and experienced” Spanish teacher for foreign students. To console her, I wrote a note reassuring her that she was a capable Spanish teacher. In my opinion, those tests were created to frustrate teachers and to provide the linguists with tangible outcomes. My friend immediately replied stating that she was in half accordance with my opinion; however, she advocated that it is our responsibility to preserve our language by knowing the grammatical theory.
These two stories had me discern our objectives as foreign language teachers. As an accredited communication major, I have always loved my language. Language is the tool that helps us speak our minds and keeps us informed about the outside world. I love the idea of spending hours discussing with other people who share my passion about languages. I realize, however, from experience that knowing a language through its grammatical theory does not help with fluency to communicate clearly.
There are many linguistic experts who have written books and innumerable articles focusing on language teaching courses. Many readers are unable to understand the publications although the publications are written in their native language. The linguistic expert’s publications are too advanced for people’s comprehension that it keeps from protecting the language from becoming deteriorated.
It would seem appropriate and logical from both perspectives that there should be a common ground amongst pedagogies. However, we cannot make assumptions without considering how language is naturally acquired. Research has indicated that infants experience a silent period before communicating clearly in his or her own language for up to two or more years. The two years are fundamental for the baby to acquire his or her native language.
Learning “to talk” is a slow process that comprises of listening to adults around us. The adults surrounding the baby use “verbs” without explicitly explaining the grammatical rule behind it. Nonetheless, babies receive continuous repetition of certain words until they are able to use them within the appropriate context. The tangible outcome proves to be successful when the babies are officially communicating in their first language.
What occurs after the initial two years of language development? Honestly, not much. We simply continue the language acquisition progress until we perfect oral communication and are ready to enroll in the academic life. It is not until we are about six or seven years old that we discover the purpose of grammar within our language. The process of acquiring language is as long as running a marathon.
If the first language is predicated by pure experience, without opening a book or studying the grammar, why do we insist on reversing the process to acquire a new language? In my opinion, the standard should be as follows: “In my Spanish foreign language class, I will not teach my students about the Spanish language and its grammar. I will teach my students to speak in Spanish so that they are able to communicate with others.”
Laura "La Maestra" Zuchovicki
laura.zuchovicki@conversaspanish.com
]]>People say that in order to have a complete life you must have a child, write a book and leave your personal mark. I have done the first two, but leaving your mark on the world is a huge task and I have just started. I am writing the CONVERSA book collection. Let me explain.
In my point of view, there are two fundamental problems in the American educational system. The first is that we are not giving our students the global vision they need when they start working in the professional world. In an effort to give uniformity to our educational system, we have created a monolingual environment that does not take advantage of different student backgrounds. In fact, we have created an uncomfortable environment where different ethnic groups avoid sharing their customs and culture. Unfortunately, the result is students who are apathetic to world events. In addition, students learning English (ELL) are labeled according to their ethnic group creating a system that immediately assumes their level of academic development without taking into account their personal academic performance. This is where a great opportunity is born! If we can move these two groups closer instead of separating them, we can improve the empathy of the English speakers by exposing them to the personal stories of the ELL students. This way ELL students will feel welcomed and more comfortable having the opportunity to share their customs and ways of living in their countries. These experiences will awaken the curiosity of the American students who will be more open to learning about other cultures. They will realize the importance of learning a foreign language to communicate with the rest of the world. Seizing this opportunity, I decided to start a project to “leave my personal mark.” The first step was logical; found an organization that would help me spread my first language, Spanish, and the customs associated with it. So CONVERSA was born - a school in southern California that not only dedicated to teaching Spanish, but also proud to share Latino roots and traditions. After years of dedication and hard work, we came up with the idea of sharing our program with teachers outside of CONVERSA. And so the second phase of this ambitious project began, to create a curriculum that would reflect our program, giving students the opportunity to enlarge their vision of the world as they learned Spanish. This task has taken us many years and the result is CONVERSABOOKS. We are far from finished; we just started to publish our books last summer. Fortunately, we have been able to incorporate not only the feedback from CONVERSA teachers who have been using our materials for 8 years, but that of teachers from different backgrounds who have given us suggestions and corrections. This is a labor of love, always keeping present the goal of creating global citizens. I invite you to help us with this endeavor and also benefit your students. Let’s prepare our students for the work force and also create citizens of the world. Happy Teaching! Laura “la maestra” Zuchovicki |
Nevertheless, all those negative experiences just made me stronger; our daughter was eight months old and she needed me to communicate on her behalf; also I had a "very supportive" husband who decided to cut all Cable TV in Spanish. Suddenly I was immersed in daytime TV in English which not only taught me the language but the culture too. I would watch with fascination the "hearings" of Clarence Thomas being accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill (nothing better to understand the intricate political system of this new country so different my Mexico). After a year of this immersion I emerged victorious being able to understand everything in the TV or radio, order my cold cuts and do visits to the doctor by myself; this last chore was still painful since the doctor was very skeptic of my language abilities and kept on talking to me like I was a 5 year old.
When we came to the United States we decided to speak Spanish at home, because it was part of our culture and the best way to communicate for us as parents, so our daughters had to become bilingual. Their language acquisition was a natural process, we spoke, they listened and after a while they started to speak it too. This Spanish language became an essence for our family. I would always talk to my daughters in Spanish when I needed to tell them something that I did not want anyone else to listen. They liked the idea and we became accomplices because we had our "secret family code" that no one else could understand. So when people ask me how we accomplished making our daughters bilingual, I simply say "we made it fun and they thought it was cool".
As a result, when I founded CONVERSA I could only think about one concept "learning a foreign language has to be natural, fun and cool". Having those things is mind in addition to my experience of learning English "the hard way" is what drives our program. I understand very well the meaning of total comprehensible input; it can’t be any other way to make the language acquisition natural, this is the main reason why we have translations in our materials. Our books have stories developed by children, for children so they are not only entertaining but they are fun. And finally the teacher is given a wide variety of activities in the teacher’s guide that will allow him or her to relate to culture and real situations. This will make the student feel comfortable with the language and culture, being able to speak Spanish and look cool.
Check out our materials and let me know if you have questions or comments...
Laura "la maestra" Zuchovicki
laura.zuchovicki@conversaspanish.com
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¡Al Agua Patos! was created to introduce the students to the Spanish Language. The stories are developed in present tense and the grammatical structures used are simple and frequently used. There is a teacher's manual that will guide you step by step through the process of TPRS method (Total Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling); the student's workbook contains the readings, activities and written exercises that will help the student have more repetitions and master the learned structures. Please refer to the links below so you can see the samples of both books and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Laura Anaya de Zuchovicki
laura.zuchovicki@conversaspanish.com
Please refer to catalog page to view sample.