Month: October 2014

Chance encounters, improv Spanish

/ Newell Searle / Leave a comment

OAXACA,Mexico

Two college-age women approached me today near Oaxaca’s Santo Domingo.

“May we sing a song to you?” they asked. One was short, with braces, and dark hair; the other was taller, fairer, with curls.

“Why?” I asked, surprised at the request.

“We just want to make you happy,” the one with braces said.

“Make me happy for a donation?” I replied.

“Only if you want to,” the other said.

“Okay,” I said. “Please sing ‘Las Mananitas,” a traditional birthday and celebration song. They cleared their throats and sang reasonably well. After that, we talked for a moment and I learned they were art students. One studied drawing, the other painting. I gave them a few pesos, and the one with dark hair asked if I would like to hear “Cancion de Oaxaca.” I agreed, and she sang it in Zapoteco, the indigenous language. Then we wished each other “buena suerte,” or good luck.

How do you feel about chance encounters with strangers? Do you draw back, or lean in?

This chance encounter was utterly spontaneous and its outcome depended entirely on my response to their question. Although I’m long out of Spanish classes, this is still part of an on-going immersion process. Each encounter opens up an opportunity to use the language in a new way, in a different context, and with someone holding another point of view. I think of it as leaving the greenhouse of carefully cultivated classroom lessons and taking root in the soil of the street.

Only an hour earlier, I stopped in Oaxaca’s Zocalo, the normally placid and magnificent square between the cathedral and the government offices. But it wasn’t tranquil today. Tarps shaded much of it, here and there were pop-up tents where activists slept. Banners bore faces of adult protestors in detention, words denounced oppression by the state government. Other banners decried the disappearance of 43 students, along with a makeshift memorial of candles and a few wilting flowers.

Stopping at a table, I asked the three young women about the cause they were promoting. They laughed nervously as they talked. Their table had cans for donatons to the families of the students who disappeared. Each young woman was studying to be a teacher, one of Mexico’s best-paying opportunities for youths from poor villages, and they came from such places. The brutal loss of 43 students like themselves made them edgy and I heard tension in their voices. Although friendly, I felt their underlying anxiety from knowing it could happen to them.

“What are you doing in Oaxaca? one asked.

I told them I was teaching English in Tlacochuhuaya, another poor town. They smiled. I put 10 pesos in their donation box, and moved on.

Such moments come by chance, but they come if we look for them. Four years ago, on my way to Cuetzalan, I shared a bus seat with a campesino, a man of the country. In a jean jacket and cap, he might almost pass for a Minnesota farmer. Pedro and I began a conversation, and I asked him about the crops growing in the fields along the highway. “You know agriculture?” he asked. I said I grew up on a farm and knew agriculture.

Very quickly, our conversation and relationship changed. Within moments, we were deeply engaged in a conversation about the technicalities of agriculture in Mexico and Minnesota. The questions and answers flew quickly, some of them I didn’t understand at first, nor know how to answer. But we talked and talked for two hours until he got up to get out at the town of Libres.

As he prepared to leave, he said: “My family is having a fiesta in three weeks, I’d like you to come.”
His invitation caught me off guard. For a moment I thought I’d misunderstood him. “It’s an invitation?” I asked, to be sure.

“Si, una invitation.”

Joining his family would be interesting and I was filled with many emotions: pride, joy, and excitement that I could establish rapport to this extent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. “I would love to meet your family, and you are very kind to ask me,” I said before I told him I couldn’t go because I had to return to the U.S. in a week. “I’m sorry.”

He looked down for a moment and then shrugged the way you do when you can’t change something. “Well, next time,” he said as he got off the bus.

What to make of these encounters? I’ve had lots of them in the last seven years. What do they add up to?

Experience. These encounters are what classroom lessons prepare us to. Classrooms are the beginning, not the end. Encounters are reality, this is language in context, language in use, language with muscles, and flaws, and surprising turns. It helps to think of these moments as “improv theater.” We just make it up as we go along. And in the moment, we are both the actor and the audience. This is where we build our confidence; confidence based on navigating social moments. It’s confidence honed by speaking with people without preparation in the topic. It’s confidence strengthened by straining to understand people whose articulation, or grammar, or syntax is out of whack, partial, imperfect. It’s real speech by real people leading real lives.
How do we do this?

First, let’s step away from our comfort zone in the hotel, the cafe, and the tourist shop where the conversation is predictable, limited, and the environment is familiar.

Second, let’s seek new territory. Look for an activity that piques our curiosity, or is new. Ask a someone an open-ended question to initiate a conversation. We aren’t looking for immediate information, like the location of the bathroom. Our question is intended to elicit an opinion, a point of view, something we and the other can share, if only for a moment. And we might ask the other person something about themselves. It’s that simple.

Third, let’s be present in the moment. Give the other person our full attention, listen closely, following up with another question if we can. Most of us are flattered by the attention of others. We are paying a compliment by being fully present to them. And they will reciprocate.

These are the steps I followed in each of the encounters above. In the case of Pedro, through an extended conversation, I made a friendship, however fleeting. In many other cases, I’ve encountered the same persons a year or two later and they have remembered our meeting. In one case a man recognized me before I noticed him.

This is immersion 2.0, the on-going learning, polishing, and perfecting of our Spanish.

Here’s your assignment. If you’re traveling, step away the hotel, cafe, or shop and look for a situation, a place, an activity where there’s an opportunity for an unexpected encounter. And if you’re not traveling, why not take a trip to the nearest Mexican grocery, mercado, or restaurant and use your language there. It’s improv and no one has ever died from doing this. And in the process, you might just receive the gift of friendship.

Next: el Dia de los Muertos

Immersion: Intensity, density, propensity

/ Newell Searle / Leave a comment

CUETZALAN, Puebla

A few days ago I shared a cafe table with an American couple.  We’d come in out of the rain to eat an early breakfast.  Middle-aged, they live in Mexico City and teach in an American school.   We chatted in English because it was easier for them.  Although they have an apartment in Mexico City, and lived there a year and a half, they have only enough Spanish to get by meeting basic needs.  They said they hoped someday to learn more Spanish to better experience Mexico.

So, is getting by enough?  Will getting by give us the level of travel or living satisfaction we want?

I started learning Spanish with a goal of “getting by” to meet basic needs as a traveler.  That was before I ever spent time in Mexico.  But after I two weeks in Mexico, I realized “getting by” wasn’t enough.

Well, don’t we want it all, want it now, and want it to come easily?  And the next logical questions is: What’s the fastest way to embed Spanish?  It’s a good question.  I’ve asked it often.  But in hindsight, do we want to learn Spanish the fastest way or learn with the deepest penetration?

I believe the fastest way won’t embed it in a way we can call on it after an absence of use.  It will be rest in our short-term memory, and soon forgotten, like the items on last week’s grocery list.  And when we go to use quickie Spanish after a lapse, it won’t be there.  Language penetration is essential.

Immersion experiences work with three critical and related aspects: Intensity, density, and propensity.  The question you and I are asking is how to reach the point at which Spanish becomes almost if not entirely automatic; we don’t have to think about it to speak it.

As my mother (a French-speaker) used to say, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.”  So our first question must be this: Is learning Spanish worth doing?  If our answer is “Yes,” then it’s worth doing well.

Intensity:  Classroom lessons – particularly in an individual class or tutorial – can provide intense experiences.  It’s just us and the teacher.  There is time to form a sympathetic friendship that furthers mastery of the subjunctive, the conditional, and the other grammar forms essential to speaking the language correctly.  There is time to ask questions whenever we want, and ask why Spanish works the way it does; to grasp the cultural mentality of the tongue, and better understand how to use Spanish effectively.

At the same time, we can help our “profesora” work with the  learning methods that are most effective for us.  Writing stories worked well for me.  I wrote the kind of short stories I might tell at a party as a vehicle to practice thinking in Spanish, and putting the vocabulary and grammar into something of a realistic context.

If writing is useful for you, consider writing stories using the parts of grammar or vocabulary you find most difficult.  Writing is thinking on paper, and from our stories, the teacher can map the waay we think in Spanish.  My teacher pointed out I couldn’t just substitute Spanish words for English without also considering the differences in syntax or structure of thinking.  Ah!  La mentalidad!  Besides seeing the structure of our thoughts, our writing reveals  persist weak spots or recurrent errors that need attention.

Four hours of class a day, five days a week, for two weeks, is more class time than in a college semester.  And it’s better.  We aren’t sharing the teacher’s attention with 15 other students.  We can establish close, personal rapport that is at the heart of intensity.  And if we fall temporarily in love with our teacher, so much the better, because the teacher’s affirmation, not correction, is an act of love essential to effective learning.

An intense, one-on-one learning course may well compress a semester of college learning into a week.  This will accelerate our learning.  It’s an opportunity to harness our passion to learn, unleash our pent-up energy, and sharpen our focus so there’s nothing else in our life at the moment.  Intensity is a form of power; like sex, it’s vital energy.

Density refers to the number or frequency of encounters in our new language within a given time.  Think of the density of experiences as something nourishing, enduring in our memory as raw material for other experiences.  Many immersion programs send us into the city with a conversation guide to practice using the language we are learning in everyday circumstances.  We are learning to use the language with people who may not speak grammatically, articulate clearly, and use slang or jargon not found in classes.

These lessons happen in a less controlled environment than a classroom.  We may (and maybe should) encounter situations spontaneously, unscripted and unforeseen.  This is a potentially frightening thought.  But in these moments, we may learn the most about the language we are pursuing.  We may surprise ourselves – as I did above with the English interview – and take from it a sense of confidence we didn’t have before.  It is true we learn more from our failures than our successes.  Spontaneous conversations are where we test our mettle and gain confidence.

What are we made of?  What lessons will we learn from strangers?  What will they think of us?  We don’t want to look stupid so it’s tempting to say nothing, or pretend we don’t understand than risk putting our foot into it.  How can we overcome our fear of making mistakes in front of others?

The only way I know of overcoming my mistakes is by making mistakes and learning from them.   The density of immersion experiences will get us over our fears faster than any classroom.  Our out of class experience will make the difference between plants able to live only in a greenhouse (the classroom), and those that endure wind, rain, and light frost.

Propensity is a natural inclination or proclivity of our own.  It’s part of who we are, and immersion helps us acquire a language in a way that best fits our style of learning and manner of expression.  Think of it as having your suit tailed to fit and complement you.  It comes through interaction with others.

If we’re already inclined to learn Spanish at mid-life, what kind of investment of time (if not money) are we willing to make?  How much satisfaction do we want from travel, volunteering, or simply learning for its own sake?   If we can define what satisfaction looks like, I’m willing to bet we won’t settle for simply “getting by.”  Go ahead, make the investment of time, if not money, to do it right.

In language is the preservation of the world

/ Newell Searle / Leave a comment

CUETZALAN, Puebla, Mexico.

Immersion has brought me back to Cuetzalan del Progreso, or Cuetzalan Magico in the tourist brochures.  This is a largely indigenous town in the northern highlands of Puebla.  I first came here for a weekend as an immersion student.  Now, I’m here to visit a my friend Lorena – or Lore – who coached me in conversational Spanish several years ago.  She now works for ChildFund Mexico, a program to help tthe language and culture of Mexico’s largest indigenous group.  In this case, the Nahua.

Trained in anthropology, she is now works with Nahua children from the hamlet of Yohualichan to teach them health, their civil rights, and other subjects.  Some are taught in Nahua, and some, like math, are taught in Spanish.  While teaching others, this remarkable young woman is in Nahua immersion as well.

A majority of Cuetzalan’s 10,000 residents follow their Nahua traditions.  Their language, Nahuatl, enriches Mexican Spanish and dots maps with names like Popocatepetl, Tehuacan, and Huaquechula.  Among the common words in Mexican Spanish are ‘coyote,’ ‘elote’ (sweetcorn), ‘atole’ (cocoa with corn flour), and guacolote (turkey) which is ‘pavo’ in regular Spanish, ‘cacahuates’ for peanuts, and ‘chapulines’ for grasshoppers.

Despite torrential, tropical rain, Lore and I spent three hours with poet Manuel Espinosa Sainos, a poet of the Tutunaku language, a sometime teacher, writer, translator, and radio broadcaster, in Tutunaku.  This is the language of his birth and his heart.  His mission is to advance Tutunaku by making it relevant to and useful in contemporary life.  This isn’t easy because Spanish, the language of conquest, administration, public education, and commerce overrides it.

Tutunaku and Nahua towns are scattered across this is a region of Gulf Coast jungle, steep mountainsides, deep valleys, and tropical agriculture.  It’s a lush, verdant region of waterfalls, temple ruins, and millenia-old traditions under assault by expropriation for economic exploitation of its natural  resources.  The indigenous people are resisting mines and hydroelectric projects.  If the projects succeed, more than  material resources will be lost.  Development threatens to rip the social fabric, the underlying culture, and the language.  And it is Manuel’s love of his language that gives him the energy to advance it as a working language.

Here, in still largely isolated tropical mountains, it’s easier to see how Spanish, Nahuatl or Tutunaku are more than vehicles for the transmission of data and information.  Regardless of the language, the words we use, and how we use them express our state of mind, our emotions, and what is hidden inside us.  At some level, our particular language reflects our deepest and truest self.

Despite the pounding rain, our conversation with Manuel continues.  He asks probing questions and listens carefully.  It is now easier to see how each of our respective languages affords subtly different view of the cosmos, as expressed, described, and defined by words.  Language gives us a particular mentality (or two) that shapes while it reflects it social setting, its culture.  Gaining the mentality behind the language, the basis of fluency, isn’t possible by learning in isolation, or with CDs.  Without interaction with others, it’s difficult to grasp or use the words precisely or with nuance.

Sloshing through Cuetzalan last night, and then a trip to the village of Jonotla, deep in the mountains, I realize immersion is a process that continues, or can continue, long after the classes are completed and all the certificates are awarded.  Language is fluid, evolving, and there is always more to learn as circumstances and places change.  And we must change and evolve with it.  Ongoing immersion sounds like a lot of work … unless you love it; then it becomes a way of life.

Addenum: The radio station is an important tool in the cultural surival of the Nahua and Tutunaku people of Puebla’s northern highlands. The programs and broadcasts on a range of practical topics, of news, and announcements, put these indigenous languages on par with Spanish as relevant means of communications in the 21st century.

Do I really want to do Spanish immersion?

/ Newell Searle / 2 Comments

PUEBLA, Mexico.  I am writing from The Spanish Institute of Puebla, the place where I learned to speak and write Spanish, and integrated much of the culture as well.  It seems only right to begin the discussion here.

Do I really want to do Spanish immersion?  l’m not a college kid anymore – I’m set in my ways,  why would I want to do that?  There are lots of good reasons, and I’ll give you a few.

Communication is more than words – I had vocabulary and grammar but couldn’t speak.

Culture is an important aspect of communication – nuance, situation, context – we’re not cyborgs.

Communication is something we feel rather than think, even when we think out loud, we express our thoughts with emotional energy – it comes from the heart, even when we’re thinking.

Interaction with others produces energy in a way a CD doesn’t – hard to have an emotional relationship with your laptop.

Immersion helps us feel the language – and we feel something in ourselves, as well.

Our attitude in approaching language can make all the difference in our success.  I learned it the hard way.

What is your model for learning Spanish?  In the beginning, I thought learning Spanish would be like learning carpentry – just follow the rules of grammar and: ‘voila!’  fluency.  I took classes offered by a Minneapolis cultural center, finished the Beginning sequence, and entered Intermediate classes.  So far, so good.  I racked up a useful vocabulary, learned the basic grammar forms, and verb conjugations.  But Intermediate classes focused on conversational exercises.  That’s when I stuttered, stammered, and froze up.

What was missing?  The right attitude, for one thing.  Humility for another.  It’s hard to learn anything until you admit you know nothing.  And I wasn’t ready to admit that.  And I was too proud to let others – especially better and younger students – see me make mistakes.  Frustrated, I thought of quitting.

Fortunately, Carlos, a former teacher, believed in me.  Although he tried to help me with informal Spanish conversatons over coffee, when the Spanish got tough, I switched to English.  Frustrated by my stubbornness, Carlos told me I would never learn to speak Spanish in Minnesota.  “You have a good vocabularly, you know some grammar, but you must go to Mexico for a month where I can’t speak English.  Then you will learn to speak Spanish.”   He was right and I did.  Carlos saw something in me I couldn’t see by myself.  For that, I’m forever grateful.

I left Minneapolis for my first immersion, my stomach full of butterflies.  About my host family I knew nothing except their last name.  What I knew of the city of Puebla came from the website of the Spanish Institute of Puebla.  And most of all, I still believed I might be too old to learn Spanish.  I boarded the flight lugging my worries like carry-on luggage.

What I didn’t know then, is that learning language has an emotional component that carpentry and other skills lack.  Language is intrinsically human, social, and emotional.  Very quickly, I realized it’s difficult to learn a language well if I keep people at a distance.  You might say learning a language isn’t intellectual as much as it is social and even emotional.  Immersion is interactive learning, in and out of class.

The first day in Puebla was a Sunday, and my host family – Julián and Lupita – retirees in their 70s and 80s, took me to an afternoon party at the home of a friend.  No one spoke English.  After introducing me around, Julian settled me into a conversation with one of the guests, and then went off to talk to others.  I was on my own!  That’s how it starts.  I will come back to this later.

Spanish immersion in Mexico offers lots of options.  Virtually every major city has one or two language institutes.  The common elements are: small classes with options for individual classes or tutorials, specialized language classes for clergy, social workers, businessmen, etc., cultural excursions, and living with a Mexican family.  All of this is designed to put you into a bubble of language you will find hard to escape.

Some midlife acquaintancess cringe at the idea of living with a host family, total strangers.  What if they don’t speak any English?  What if we’re incompatible?  What if I don’t like them?  I like to be in control of my life.  And so on.  It’s true, we’re pretty set in our ways by the time we’re 50 or 60.  And maybe we don’t like to upset our routine, step outside the world as we know it.  But maybe that’s just what we should do.  Language immersion will take you to a new comfort zone – if you let it.

Some of my acquaintances say they’ll buy a set of CDs instead of immersion.  True, CDs are cheaper than immersion.  I tried that, too.  It had no impact on my Spanish.  You can learn a lot of words with CDs and build a good vocabulary, and maybe some grammar, but learning to speak requires someone to talk with.  Interactive computer programs lack an essential emotional component.

Breaking out of our settled routine is just the thing to open ourselves to learning, to shed the carapace we’ve all built up as parents, professionals, citizens; to free ourselves from the accumulation of promotions, titles, positions, and other accomplishments that may define us.  These things are irrelevant to learning Spanish, and no one south of the Rio Grande will be long impressed by them.  Immersion is an opportunity to learn language while adapting to a new context.

Now, to return to the afternoon party: my companion was a lawyer who jump started the conversation with simple questions.  I’m sure my responses came in broken phrases, ‘pidgin Spanish’ of poorly conjugated verbs and incomplete thoughts.  But as we talked (and finished several bottles of Corona), I began relaxing and as I did, the words flowed more easily.

Why?  Intuition plays a role in this.  As we talked, the conversation moved away from me, my work, and my family to broader topics that involved opinions.  I was far out at sea, dog-paddling along, searching for words.  Now and then, English words came to mind – English words with Latin roots.  They are called ‘cognates,’ and often mean the same thing in both languages.

I seized on cognates the way a drowning man grabs onto driftwood.  Conjugating as best I could, I floated my creation in a sentence, followed by a question: “Es claro?”  Meaning is it clear or correct.  Invariably, they answered “Sí.”  Affirmation gave a small boost to my confidence.  No one was laughing, or judging my Spanish; most of all me.

We talked for an hour or two, the words came out more easily but not necessarily grammatically because I relaxed.  Already, the affirmation from my companion was giving me confidence in myself.

The day ended, we said good bye, and went home.  I went to bed tired but excited, pumped up and unwilling to stop talking, I was on a roll!  Gone was my fear it was too late to learn.  I’d just finished seven hours of conversations!

Here’s a tip: Many English verbs ending in “-ate” are cognates for Spanish verbs.  For example: Incarcerate (to imprison) is encarcelar in Spanish.  English nouns ending in “-ion” are often the same in Spanish, such as: Information – información.  Some of the English cognates are little used now, like masticate (to chew) but current in Spanish as masticar.

The next post will continue this line of thought.  Hasta pronto!

Use it, don’t lose it

/ Newell Searle / 2 Comments

Language, like any skill, will remain strong as long as we use it. But what do we do when we can’t use it every day? Ever felt reluctant to speak, thinking you’re rusty, you’ve forgotten too much, or can’t recall verb forms? I think we all have, but it’s never as bad as we think.

Right now, I’m packing to work voluntarily as an English teacher in Oaxaca, México. Many students learned Spanish as a second language in addition to their indigenous one. How clearly will we understand each other, at least at first? But my ear will “re-tune” itself, like getting used to accents in the Deep South or coastal Maine.   I’ve noticed Spanish comes more easily – as if by magic – when I don’t think about it and simply trust my brain, intuition, and emotions to take charge.

So, how do we keep our Spanish in shape and – most importantly – keep up our self-confidence when we can’t speak Spanish every day?  Let’s look for substitutes, like a local Hispanic radio station, or cruise I-Heart Radio for one on the Internet.  Want to practice speaking, but there’s no one to talk to?  Buy simple books in Spanish – children’s or young adult novels – and read them aloud to yourself.  One of my Mexican friends taught herself English by reading the Amelia Bedilia series of children’s books to her daughter.  Reading aloud exercises your tongue to make Spanish sounds while it also imprints the sounds in your ears.  Want more?  Talk to yourself – in Spanish – while commuting in your car.

Don’t believe what everybody says.

/ Newell Searle / 2 Comments

Conventional wisdom says mature, middle-aged adults are too old to learn a second language. Such wisdom goes on to say only children and youths possess the mental flexibility to become fluent. I used to believe it until I tried it, and then discovered that conventional wisdom is wrong.

Experience taught me that, as mature adults, you and I have everything we need to learn and become fluent in another language. You can do it – “Sí se puede.” I started Spanish at the age of 64 and I’m now fluent. I want to share what I’ve learned, hear about your experiences and together wrestle with your questions.

Learning is as much emotional as mental; it’s falling in love, and who doesn’t want to do that? Love is married to desire. And don’t you secretly desire, or dream of speaking another language? Do you wonder if you’re able to learn it? Or do you think it’s too late for that? If you heart wants to learn, listen to it and ignore what your head says about conventional wisdom. Follow your heart. As they say in Mexico, “Querer es poder,” or “To want is to be able to;” it’s a way of saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

If you want to learn a language, and believe you can, this column is for you. Let’s take the journey together .