Learning from my Students

One of the best perks of this job is extracting the great amount of information my students hold in their bilingual brains. I am relatively new to the Barcelona area, am always ready to learn more about Spanish culture, and have plans to do some more traveling in the near future. All of that comes with lots of questions and curiosities. And who better to talk to than my well-traveled, Spanish students?

The basis of any English class is conversation--the goal is always to get my students to freely talk for as long as possible, no matter the subject. But of course they talk more if they are actually interested in the topic. That's why living in Barcelona, Spanish culture, and travel are common themes throughout our classes.

One of my most informative pupils is Gina, a chatty 15-year-old from Andorra. I see Gina twice per week, and our conversations can range from anything from prepositions to horror novels (one of her favorite authors is in fact Steven King). She speaks Catalan, Castellano (Spanish), French, and of course, English. She is very fond of her home, Andorra, which is a small landlocked country between Northern Spain and Southern France. Its primary language is Catalan, although Castellano and French are also commonly spoken. She tells me it has a lot of protected green space, and told me a fun fact that 30 out of 32 lakes in Andorra do not permit any boats on the surface.

She does know a lot about Spain, too, and likes to break down the country for me. Gina says that the North is famous for tapas, and the South is famous for olives, oranges, and ham. Catalunya is famous for intense Catalan pride, including the Catalan language and other traditions. She also demonstrates for me the different dialects around the region--how Andorra speaks a slightly different Catalan from Catalunya and Valencia, and the North speaks a slightly different Castellano from the South, etc. She teaches me different vocabulary words and phrases typical of each region, and the different accents and voice inflections that go along with it.

To be honest, I didn't know that much about the whole of Spain. In Sevilla, I learned a lot about Sevilla and the culture of Andalucia, the Southern region. But very little about the rest of the country because, let's be honest, in the South they talk about all things Southern, and anything else doesn't matter. Gina has also really opened my eyes to the languages in the region. I didn't realize so much variety existed within one rather small country. Sure, you could say that we speak a different dialect of English in the United States than in the United Kingdom, but those countries are separated by an ocean. Within the United States, we have different accents and "slang", but not necessarily different dialects in the way they have here.

On the flip side, Gina of course always has lots of questions about the States. She's curious about our education system, fashion, social life, and food. She told me that when she thinks of "America," she thinks of fast food, Barack Obama, and pistols (in that order). I giggled at this a little, but I imagine that's pretty much what many people think about my home country. Think of that what you will.

My adult students are just as useful as my talkative teenager. Like Gina, they really enjoy talking about Barcelona, Spain, and travel, and always have lots of questions about my life in the States as well. They tell me about the good restaurants and bars in Barcelona, which coastal city has the best beaches, and how to celebrate each upcoming Catalan holiday.

They are also impressively well-traveled. For example, I see Dulcis three to four times per week, and traveling seems to come up in every conversation. But how could it not? She's married, middle-aged, is the Chief Financial Officer of a major internet corporation, and doesn't have kids. Therefore, she has time and money to spend on doing super sweet things. For example, she has a cottage in the South of France which she visits frequently, and spends her Easter break sleeping under the stars in the desert of Tunisia.

And so a lot of my classes are spent with me taking notes on all my students have to say. Upcoming Catalan holidays, the address of that restaurant in the city, or which island off the coast has the best beaches. And oh yeah, also grammar mistakes, pronunciation corrections, and vocabulary to expand on in our next class.