TEFLees in Spain

During the course at TT we learned about an interesting bit of terminology known as “first language interference,” or simply, “L-1 interference.” The definition identifies this phrase as the phenomenon created when a word in the student’s native language is wrongly confused with a word in the language they’re learning. It doesn’t have to be just a singular word however. It may be a phrase, an expression, a conjugated verb, or an idea as well.

For example, students regularly mistake their English prepositions in place of Spanish ones. “It depends of” instead of “it depends on.” “I have cold” instead of “I am cold.” “You laugh of me” in place of “You laugh at me.” Etc. etc. These are all classically common cases of L-1 interference that as an English teacher, summons up exhaustively redundant corrections that warrant at least two or three stress relieving pints at the end of the workweek.

In some cases however, these word confusions can be quite a bit more interesting, as happened today. While discussing the ever sensitive topic of religion, my students all agreed that the Catholic Church is looking at quite a bleak future.

“Religion causes many wars,” said one, to the consenting nods of the rest of the class.

“The church makes so much trouble with politics,” remarked another.

“Catholicism is helping to spread diseases all over the world,” the other student chimed in.

“How is it contributing to the spread of diseases?” I asked curiously.

“Because,” the student to my left explained, “of preservatives. They don’t have preservatives.”

“Preservatives?” I asked doubtfully.

“Yes, preservatives,” responded another student with confidence. “You can’t use preservatives and that is spreading AIDS and other diseases everywhere.”

“Also,” began another student, “when people get diseases the government has to pay the bill for their health care. That costs us all money!”

Preservatives? I wondered. So since Spanish food has no preservatives, does that mean I could get AIDS? I’ll never open another bag of Bimbo bread without fear again! Obviously, there had to be some kind of misunderstanding. Either that, or this was some type of common knowledge to which sometime during my education, I had somehow been left on the outside.

“What exactly do you mean preservatives?”

“Preservatives,” repeated the student to my right matter-of-factly as if I were an ignorant child, “for sex – so you don’t have babies.”

“Ohhhh,” it suddenly dawned on me, “the word in Spanish is preservativo, but in English it’s condom! There’s a big difference!”

It’s inevitable that after six months of classes I’ve started becoming pretty good friends with my students. This is my job however, so I do try and maintain a professional distance, but in reality, they come to class every day and we chat about our lives – pasts presents, and futures – and it’s nearly impossible to not become somewhat close after so many early mornings or dragging afternoons.

I’d like to think that my time with them is something they look forward to as a break in the monotony of their workweeks. This camaraderie is great for me, too. Sometimes if I’m having a bad day and it’s written all over my face, my students will just slyly suggest, “Let’s all go for a coffee instead of class!” and so we will. And always, despite my protests, they’ll pick up the bill. “No, no, no, Matt. It is our treat – we take you for coffee, it’s no big deal. Tranquilo!”

Another great thing about all these friendly feelings is the comfort level we have together. My students know their English isn’t perfect, and sometimes when they make mistakes we both feel okay about laughing at ourselves. I wrote a previous entry about the student who talked about killing ten bears in a weekend, but left out the conversation that followed which I thought was hysterical. After realizing that he’d meant birds and not bears, I went on to correct his pronunciation error.

“Jose Luis,” I managed through a fit of laughter, “it’s not bears, it’s birds,” I said slowly, enunciating the differences and pointing to my mouth to show him the different shapes to make for the correct pronunciation. “Say it with me now: birrrrrd.”

“Beeeeaaaar,” he repeated straight faced, looking me in the eye.

“No, that’s beeeeaaaar. Say birrrrrd.”

“Beeeeaaaaar,” he tried again, smiling.

“No,” I corrected, “Bird should sound like word. Try saying word for me.”

“Word.”

“Okay, now – birrrrd.”

“Beeeeaaaar!”

Barely able to hold back the laughter any longer, I shook my head and rubbed my face with both hands. “Jose Luis – it’s bird, with a “D.” Say it – birrrr-d.”

“Beeeaaaar-d.” He replied again, sending both of us finally into a fit of hysterics. “My pronunciation is horrible!” he then declared, making us laugh all the harder. After so many months of practice with this advanced student, it struck both of us as hilarious that at such a high level of English, he couldn’t say such a simple word correctly. I wouldn’t ever laugh at a low level student or any student for that matter – not out of spite at least. The thing about this was that I was laughing with him and not at him. And whereas Jose Luis may be able to give full on business presentations in nearly fluent English, he just can’t manage to get “bird” right.

Typing at my window this evening, I was struck with a sudden epiphany. You know that old saying about how you don’t really know what you got ‘till it’s gone? Well, I guess that’s true in some cases, but this has more to do with returning than leaving. As I was saying, while my fingers thundered over the keyboard, I was startled by the rapidly waxing sound of what initially sounding like the whup-whup-whupping cadence of a coming copter.

Turning to shield myself from this impending doom, I realized with a mix of disgust and relief that what I’d thought to be a helicopter was actually a pair of giant bats making a beeline for my open French doors, on a path straight for my head. As I raised my hands once again to block these rabid terrors I saw that they were, in fact, some other winged beast of Iberia.

Crouching back in my chair to keep a safe distance, I inspected them with kiddish curiosity. Midnight blue color. White racing striped wings. Fascinating beak-like protrusions where the faces should have been. Nervous twitchy hopping from their tree branch perches. Musical, whistling mating calls. Why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?

Memories of sunshine and flip flops started slowly coming back to mind, creeping in like the first thaw of – that’s it! Spring! Old Mr. Groundhog must certainly have seen his shadow this February after his long wintertime nap, and as the chirping birds and blooming flowers have now reminded me, the rest of Mother Nature is finally coming back to life as well.

The winds have retreated northwards, the clouds have thinned down to sparse wisps of distant white like the hairline of a 90 year old, and good ole Jack Frost has taken his nipping annoyances to the southern hemisphere, leaving us madrileños to enjoy our morning coffees under crystal skies and delightful Spanish sunshine.

You can see it in the people’s faces as well. Those typically terse old men behind the bar now serve up bocadillos with a twitching at the corner of their mouths that if you looked close enough, would almost trick your eyes into seeing the illusion of a smile. The people in the metro hustle around like the underside of an anthill, rushing to get outside into the sun. And, thanks be to heaven above, those tiny little “dogs,” or “rats with fur” as I prefer to call them, have finally shed those terribly tacky wintertime hoodies forced on them by their owners.

Ah springtime. Time to kick back, do some cleaning, dig out the Florida-boy flip flops from the back of the closet, and put on my shades – it’s gonna be a warm one today.

Okay so it’s the middle of March now and I’ll admit that regardless of the zeal with which I started this Spanish learning spring, I haven’t gotten as far as I’d like to on my language journey. With classes back in full swing and various writing projects in the way (not to mention a continual enjoyment of Madrid’s nightlife), my list of excuses has grown in Pinocchio-type fashion into a nose whose cross-eyed end juts blurrily out of eye shot.

My Spanish shortcomings aside, I can at least be comforted by knowing that my friends are struggling right along with me. And not only is there comfort in this knowledge, but I can also take confidence in the fact that a few are even farther behind me in their bilingual quests.

Let’s take last weekend for example. A few friends and I were at a café eating tapas, and after a couple rounds or two my roommate went to inquire as to the whereabouts of the restroom. As he approached the waiter, digging down deep in his thin mental Spanish dictionary to impress our friends with his nearly fluent word choice, he imagined the scene play out in his head. He’d begin with a perfectly pronounced interrogative sentence whereby the waiter would respond with a smile, an explanation, and some supplemental body language. This of course would be followed by some friendly banter that’d end with him being successfully pointed in the direction of the toilet. And finally, to punctuate this encounter, my roommate would then issue to the waiter a hearty slap on the shoulder, wishing him luck in all of life’s endeavors.

The reality, as it turned out, was quite different. Walking up to the waiter, my roommate coughed out a nervous “Ahem,” to first grab his attention. Instead of answering with a helpful smile though, the frowning waiter’s thickly unibrowed forehead collapsed into a wrinkled “V” of impatience, aggravated to be interrupted on his quarter-hourly cigarette break. And, turning to blow out a final whoosh of feathery smoke, the waiter with his empty hand on his hip and an upward flick of the chin, spat out, “Digame.”

“Donde esta tus sueños?¨ he asked, the words rolling from his tongue with assurance.

Instead of responding with an amiable point of the finger or word of polite encouragement however, the waiter raised his thick eye brow, pursed his lips, and folded his heavy, hairy arms across his chest in confused thought.

“Los sueños?” my roommate repeated with waning confidence.

You could nearly see the light bulb pop up over the waiter’s head as the communication gap was bridged, and, in typical madrileño response, he muttered some mumbled mumbo jumbo fast as a fox, raised a fat fingered knuckled towards the back of the restaurant, and sent my roommate on his way.

After what I now imagine to have been a very confused bathroom break, my roommate returned to the table with a serious, pensive scowl, and as soon as he sat back down asked, “What’s the Spanish word for bathroom?”

I pointed to the sign over the restroom like a first grade teacher during a reading lesson, enunciating slowly, “As–e-os. Dude, seriously, how do you not know this by now?”

Ignoring my mocking Spanish superiority however, he answered my question with another. “Then what does sueños mean?”

“Dreams,” the whole table responded in unison.

My roommate’s face then reddened and his lips widened into a smile like a child learning a new dirty word. “I think I just asked the waiter where his dreams are!” he confessed with a laugh and a gulp of beer.

And sure enough, as I turned in the waiter’s direction, I could see him brooding in the corner by the exit - scratching his head, biting his nails, staring skyward, and wondering with soul searching solace where his long lost dreams had gone.

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s one student in my first class of the week who always makes my case of the Mondays melt into the nostalgic remembrances of the weekend past. Today for instance, while the rest of the class and I sat groggy-eyed and yawning during a discussion of our childhood memories, Rafa with his coffee was wired with wit and ready to go.

We’d just finished talking about childhood games when I asked, “Well, are there any games that you still play now?”

“Nintendo Wii,” answered the woman to my right.

“Football,” replied the marketing director.

“Doctor!” blurted Rafa, at left. The class then erupted into hysterics and instead of rubbing the sleep from our drooping eye lids, we were now wiping away tears of laughter. But he didn’t stop there. In the same way that a stand up comedian waits for the giggles to die down from his audience, Rafa’s timing was perfect when he continued, “I have pretty young woman come in, and I tell her, ‘Take off your blouse and say 33.” (Apparently the Spanish say 33 at the doctor instead of the typical American “cough cough” routine). “But if old woman comes in I tell her, ‘Keep your shirt on or go next door to Raul’s office!’” (Raul was the marketing director sitting next to Rafa).

He wasn’t done yet however. Biding his time once again to wow us with his comedic cleverness, he was careful as a lion on the prowl before pouncing once again into another spontaneous outburst. We were continuing merrily on now in our reflection of childhood memories when I popped the typical question, “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Nurse,” said one.

“Football player,” answered the other.

“Doctor!” exclaimed Rafa, forcing us all once again to double over with laughter. Maybe it was the espresso that gave him the edge this morning; maybe he was just well rested after a relaxing weekend with the family; maybe he just really loves his job more than the rest of us and was excited to start off yet another week of the grind; or maybe, as I try telling myself, he bolts out of bed before the alarm on Monday mornings in ecstatic anticipation of his wildly engaging and constructive English lesson. Regardless of the reason however, there’s something he has apart from caffeinated side effects that I think we all need to learn. Following the example of that vehemently vexing Monday morning chipper chap, we should all maybe try just a little harder to smile at the long workweek ahead of us.

There’s one big thing I forgot to mention in the last entry regarding foreign language acquisition: you must be ready to look like a fool, and laugh at your mistakes, at all times. The fortunate thing about the Spanish is that they’re almost always ready to give you a helping hand with their language. If you tell them basically that you’ve come to their country to learn their language and teach English, then they’ll usually be patient and help you out.

This is something I really appreciate being from Florida, where the plethora of foreigners are given little patience. No one really cares whether you’re there to learn the language, ride roller coasters, or take pictures with Mickey – the attitude is simply: if you don’t speak English, don’t try talking to me. I have to say that I’m quite guilty of this intolerant attitude at certain periods of my life (most specifically while perusing the aisles of Orlando’s outlet malls), and after being here for six months I have a real appreciation for Spanish patience. I remember hoping that when I went home for Christmas break, I’d have a chance to return the favor somehow, but was never given the chance to help out a foreigner – well, there’s always the next fifty years or so…

Anyway, as I was saying, it’s great when you’re appreciated for making an effort to learn the language here, but unfortunately you don’t always have the chance to make this fact known, and like I said above, the best way to prepare yourself for any awkward exchanges in clumsy Spanish is to just laugh at yourself. Case in point: dinner the other night. There’s one friend of mine whose Spanish is really great, and so every time we get together to go for a bite or a drink, he always does the talking. Well seeing as I have a resolution to uphold, I figured it was about time I stepped up to the plate to tell the waiter (who was doing a great job of playing the typically Spanish “ignore the customer game”) that we were ready to order. So, I cleared my throat, got the phrase ready in my mind, and blurted out, in perfect Spanish: “Perdon señor. Quieras comer algo,” with all the confidence of a true madrileño.

Much to my dismay however, the startled waiter gave me quite a confused look. Hadn’t I said it right? “We want to eat something.” Wasn’t that correct? What just happened? Where am I? Etc. Regardless of all this confusion, the waiter did manage to get the point, although as my bilingual buddy explained to me through a fit of laughter, “Dude – you just told the waiter: “Excuse me, sir. You want to eat something!” Ohhhh yeah. “Quieras” means “you want,” not “we want.” Oops. Well I guess if the waiter was hungry after all, maybe he didn’t catch my mistake, and thought instead that I was, in fact, a psychic mind reader.

As mentioned in previous blogs, my New Year’s resolution has been, and continues to be, to learn Spanish - at all costs. Now, as I’ve unfortunately discovered, one cannot learn a language through osmosis. Unfortunately. It’s not like you just come to Madrid, live in the city for a while, then magically presto! You’re rolling your “r’s” like a pro, chatting up chicas over nightclub noise, and having intellectual conversations with your neighbors – small talk even, is not easily achieved.

So, in order to master this secondary method of communication, there are several avenues to take. First, there’s the ever popular intercambios (basically in English, “exchange”). These are held nearly every night of the week in numerous bars and cafes across the city, and basically consist of proactive language students of both Spanish and English who come together in a relaxed atmosphere to practice speaking in their non-native tongues. As an added bonus, every single one of them is free, so excuses are hard to come by for missing out.

Of course, these intercambios are for the more advanced of Madrid’s bilingual population, but for those lower level speakers, there’s still hope. For example, most everyone I know lives with native Spanish speakers, so there’s your daily intercambio right there. If this isn’t the case, there are tons of great (free) online resources for one to use to sharpen the Spanish skills. And if you just so happen to be an alumnus of TTMadrid, then you’re in even better shape. After graduating the course, there’s a complimentary four week class from one of the best Spanish teachers Madrid has to offer. And as expensive as most Spanish classes can be, TT offers them for what has to be the cheapest price in the city, at a meager four Euro’s an hour when your free sessions run out.

As for those of you who’ve got time to hop on the language train before making the trans Atlantic pond leap, check out the Rosetta Stone program – I’ve been using it for about seven months now, and I can say that it’s improved my Spanish by leaps and bounds (I started the program knowing absolutely zero Spanish, outside of hola, and si of course). It can be a bit pricy, but it enables you to practice every language skill possible, so check it out.

And if you find yourself getting ready to cross over to the Spanish side of life without an infant’s knowledge of the language, don’t fret it or sweat it – there are thousands of people in this international city who share a common language with you, so friends aren’t hard to come by!