No hablo espanol!!!

So, this week I began my volunteer work at Lafayette Adult Resource Academy, currently (and hopefully permanently) located in Washington Elementary School. I now tutor the beginning ESL class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I LOVED the training portion, which lasted two full mornings and in which I got a first-class tour of the place, stories from the director's life, and most importantly some practice in tutoring. Last night was my first full 3-hour class period, though, and I was pretty wiped out. Too many worksheets, my eyes felt heavy by the end of it all. We'll see, though--another volunteer there said that it's something new and different every week. And the teacher is a really nice, open lady. So I'm still excited. And there are always conversation labs I could volunteer in if I need to switch it up.

I should probably explain that my personal philosophy is that when in an ESL class, you don't have to know the native language of the students. They are there to hear, speak, read, write, and learn English. I'm not suggesting that we devalue or exclude their native language and culture--quite the opposite, in fact. But if they are there to learn English, the best way is by immersion, as with any foreign language. One of my personal pet peeves is when I tell someone that I'm interested in teaching ESL someday and they say, "Oh, you speak Spanish?" or "Oh, what language do you speak?" My answer to the latter is always an abrupt, "English!" The thing is, of course, Spanish is the second most used language in the United States, and around here is "the" language to speak. Looking back on things, it would've been the most useful language to study in high school, while Japanese would've been the most fun and personally rewarding. As it is, I studied French. (Et je l'ai appris bien, merci beaucoup!) Go figure. And then American Sign Language. But I digress...

I have a boyfriend who's fluent in the Spanish language thanks to a mission in Vancouver, but I don't speak a lick of it. I can read a fair amount because it's so similar to French in some ways, but to hear it I may as well be listening to Turkish. (Which, by the way, everyone in the evening class is from Mexico or Guatemala except one girl, from Turkey. The Asian group, sad day, meets in the morning classes...) So while I still maintain that if I were teaching the class I'd structure it so that English was the focus, I'm realizing that as a tutor I can't understand some of their questions and they can't understand some of my answers. Some students are right with the teacher as they all fill out those blasted worksheets, but others are lost and without a model to follow they don't know what to do. So I need to learn some Spanish. I don't care enough to study it fully--a decision I will probably someday regret--but I certainly do need to get some of the basics down.

Note: The reason I don't care enough about it is that there are several places in the country, Lafayette included, where Spanish is NOT the major minority language spoken. Polish, Dutch, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, French, and several of the middle-eastern countries have their own well-established communities, and often in urban areas you'll have all of them mixed together in a single ESL class. Spanish will not help you then. I am going to Japan in two years to teach English in a middle school there for a year. Do you think that Spanish will matter there? Not really. My point is that there are other cultures out there that matter, too, and students from many places of the world, and so to be an effective ESL teacher you either have to know every major language in the world (but I'm no John Henry Jorgenson), or you have to know English and use it wisely. I'm stuck with the latter. The only reason I really care now is that Paul speaks it, and we want our children to speak it, so I'm going to have to learn it eventually, anyway...after I get some Japanese down, of course. :)

But for the purposes of this volunteer experience, here are the first ten Spanish phrases I will learn:

1. Me llamo Celeste. My name is Celeste.


2. No hablo espanol. I don't speak Spanish.


3. No entiendo. I don't understand.


4. Como te llamas? What is your name?


5. De donde eres? Where are you from?


6. Donde esta (el bano)? Where is (the bathroom)?


7. No me gusta. I don't like it.


8. Creo que si/no. I think so/I don't think so.


9. Que tengas suerte! Good luck!


10. Una lengua nunca es suficiente. One language is never enough.