Having studied accents and dialects in theatre, I find this actress's ability to slip in and out of 21 accents in 2 minutes nothing short of amazing. Listen for yourself.
As a TESL teacher, I am very conscious of my accent when speaking to students, because I want to speak clearly and be understood and to have them emulate my pronunciation. But there just is no such thing as a neutral English accent. The so-called trans-Atlantic accent now just conjures the image of Katherine Hepburn.
Sure, you may believe you are accent-less, but that is a subjective judgment relative to where the listener is from and how they speak. Since I'm from Maryland, I have more or less a Middle Atlantic American accent. But my accent sticks out like a sore thumb in any other U.S. region, and even more so in UK-accent-partial Europe.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Language learning takes more than scattered classes
According to language learning experts quoted in a NYT article, "If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Spanish," kids need immersion to become fluent in a language--they need to be exposed to a language for at least 30% of their waking hours for the language to really sink in. Which means that sporadic classes may be of some help to get their little ears used to the language's sounds, but classes alone aren't enough. Kids need back-up activities at home. And they need fun and games, not flashcards and rote exercises.
I think this all applies very much to my experience teaching English here in Spain. I can see the most progress in kids who do their homework and study regularly at home, but by no means are any of them fluent in English. Nor will any of them become fluent without home-based support. I see the most hope for second-language acquisition for those kids who come from non-Spanish backgrounds...Romanian, Chinese, Moroccan, etc. They will hopefully retain their mother tongue and acquire Spanish as well. But whether they or any of their native Spaniard classmates will really learn English to a high degree depends on many factors outside the classroom. We are supposedly offering the children bilingual Spanish and English education but the reality is it is not an immersion environment. We still mostly approach their education as though it were a second language and we tackle it in less than 1-hour-at-a-time chunks.
In my personal experience, I have become nearly fluent in Spanish, but only after 10 years of studying it. At the end of high school, I still had halting speech and incomplete grammatical understandings. It was only with rigorous university-level classes--literature seminars especially--taught exclusively in Spanish by fluent and often native professors who demanded we always use Spanish in speech and writing, that I started to get closer to where I am today. Then, I did a 3.5 month study-abroad in Spain and then, I came back and married a native Spanish-speaker. Speaking Spanish and English on a daily basis together is the surest means by which we have both improved our respective second languages. Neither of us continues with formal classroom learning but we read, listen to and converse in both English and Spanish, organically.
We intend to raise our future children in Spanish and English and will follow the prevailing research to do that in the best way, with the goal of them being equally comfortable expressing themselves verbally and in writing in both the mother's and father's tongues. I hope that they will pick up a third language through schooling, but depending on when and how that third language is introduced, they will probably never become truly fluent, since they won't have back-up support in the home.
I think this all applies very much to my experience teaching English here in Spain. I can see the most progress in kids who do their homework and study regularly at home, but by no means are any of them fluent in English. Nor will any of them become fluent without home-based support. I see the most hope for second-language acquisition for those kids who come from non-Spanish backgrounds...Romanian, Chinese, Moroccan, etc. They will hopefully retain their mother tongue and acquire Spanish as well. But whether they or any of their native Spaniard classmates will really learn English to a high degree depends on many factors outside the classroom. We are supposedly offering the children bilingual Spanish and English education but the reality is it is not an immersion environment. We still mostly approach their education as though it were a second language and we tackle it in less than 1-hour-at-a-time chunks.
In my personal experience, I have become nearly fluent in Spanish, but only after 10 years of studying it. At the end of high school, I still had halting speech and incomplete grammatical understandings. It was only with rigorous university-level classes--literature seminars especially--taught exclusively in Spanish by fluent and often native professors who demanded we always use Spanish in speech and writing, that I started to get closer to where I am today. Then, I did a 3.5 month study-abroad in Spain and then, I came back and married a native Spanish-speaker. Speaking Spanish and English on a daily basis together is the surest means by which we have both improved our respective second languages. Neither of us continues with formal classroom learning but we read, listen to and converse in both English and Spanish, organically.
We intend to raise our future children in Spanish and English and will follow the prevailing research to do that in the best way, with the goal of them being equally comfortable expressing themselves verbally and in writing in both the mother's and father's tongues. I hope that they will pick up a third language through schooling, but depending on when and how that third language is introduced, they will probably never become truly fluent, since they won't have back-up support in the home.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Sevilla, architecture and azulejos
Sevilla was a fun visit, but we felt like there was a lot we weren't able to see that we would've liked to. Like the Plaza de Toros, the Archivo de Indias and Museo de Bellas Artes. Still, we were able to see the Alcázar and the Plaza de España. See the first; but skip the second. In homage to all the beautiful azulejos and yeso carvings we saw on our journey, here are pictures we took of architectural details in Sevilla (Alcázar), Granada (Alhambra) and Córdoba (Meziquita):
The most trouble we ran into in Sevilla when it came time for tapas was that all the cheap places were standing-room only, and all the places where you could sit weren't cheap. I'm sorry to say we didn't make it to a flamenco bar that night, being pretty tired from our whirwind tour of Andalucía. We resolved to go see live flamenco in Madrid, perhaps for example at Cardamomo.
The most trouble we ran into in Sevilla when it came time for tapas was that all the cheap places were standing-room only, and all the places where you could sit weren't cheap. I'm sorry to say we didn't make it to a flamenco bar that night, being pretty tired from our whirwind tour of Andalucía. We resolved to go see live flamenco in Madrid, perhaps for example at Cardamomo.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Granada and the Alhambra
Granada...magical city. The closest I think I've ever been to Morrocco, literally and figuratively. Its main attraction, of course, is the stunning palace of El Alhambra. I had my fst chance to visit it in 2004 and I had anticipated the place for a long time. That's because way back in middle school, I had played a piano duet in three parts: "The Alhambra Suite."
When we arrived by bus from Córdoba, we decided we'd try to squeeze that landmark in during the afternoon, but after a quick falafel and catching a bus to the Alhambra, we realized all the tickets earmarked for that day had been sold out. Word to the wise: buy them in advance.
We resolved to rise really early to stand in line for same-day tickets and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the labyrinthine Albayzin area, and encountering lots of Grenadine life--like impromptu flamenco practices in a park with the Alhambra brooding in the sunset (too bad we had no audio recorder with us to pick up the live guitar). We would recommend going to the mosque instead of the mirador for your least crowded viewing experience.
Leaving the Albayzin area just after dark didn't seem like the greatest idea when we were all by ourselves in a very, ahem, bohemian area, but soon enough we were back down near the city center on backstreets modeled after Arabic bazaars. We were enticed by scarves and slippers and in our hunt for silk teabags for a gift, we met a really great shopkeeper at the Flor de la Té (everyone sent us his way and he turned out to be the premier supplier of everyone else).
We especially loved the teterías and the dulces árabes you can buy in this area. I think those two items alone could convince me to join one of Granada's hippie-student communes.
We ate at an OK Lebanese restaurant, but I regret not having sought out the pitch-perfect couscous at Restaurante Arrayanes, which comes highly recommended.
In the morning, we were at the Alhambra entrance at 7 a.m. and were able to get tickets for the complex. It felt uncomfortably crowded, moreso than I'd remembered, but out in the Generalife gardens it felt more private.
The strangest part was seeing the showpiece Court of Lions, which normally has a fountain surrounded by 12 lions in the center, but due to restoration has...a big box.
When we arrived by bus from Córdoba, we decided we'd try to squeeze that landmark in during the afternoon, but after a quick falafel and catching a bus to the Alhambra, we realized all the tickets earmarked for that day had been sold out. Word to the wise: buy them in advance.
We resolved to rise really early to stand in line for same-day tickets and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the labyrinthine Albayzin area, and encountering lots of Grenadine life--like impromptu flamenco practices in a park with the Alhambra brooding in the sunset (too bad we had no audio recorder with us to pick up the live guitar). We would recommend going to the mosque instead of the mirador for your least crowded viewing experience.
Leaving the Albayzin area just after dark didn't seem like the greatest idea when we were all by ourselves in a very, ahem, bohemian area, but soon enough we were back down near the city center on backstreets modeled after Arabic bazaars. We were enticed by scarves and slippers and in our hunt for silk teabags for a gift, we met a really great shopkeeper at the Flor de la Té (everyone sent us his way and he turned out to be the premier supplier of everyone else).
We especially loved the teterías and the dulces árabes you can buy in this area. I think those two items alone could convince me to join one of Granada's hippie-student communes.
We ate at an OK Lebanese restaurant, but I regret not having sought out the pitch-perfect couscous at Restaurante Arrayanes, which comes highly recommended.In the morning, we were at the Alhambra entrance at 7 a.m. and were able to get tickets for the complex. It felt uncomfortably crowded, moreso than I'd remembered, but out in the Generalife gardens it felt more private.
The strangest part was seeing the showpiece Court of Lions, which normally has a fountain surrounded by 12 lions in the center, but due to restoration has...a big box.
Córdoba
Shame on me for waiting what is an eternity in blog-time to catch up on posting. All one of my readers has complained. ; ) Without further ado, here's my write-up of the earliest backlog--our December trip to Andalucía...
In case you didn't know, Spaniards have a habit of taking an extra day off if it happens to fall between a Thursday or Tuesday holiday and the weekend. This is codified into many school calendars at various times throughout the year, and the result is referred to as a "bridge," or puente.
For our early December puente, we were very ambitious, and decided we could visit 3 cities in the south in 4 days. The first city we hit was beautiful Córdoba. After a quick chocolate and churros breakfast at El Brillante, we hopped on a Talgo express train from Atocha to Córdoba a city that harks back to Al-Andalus, or Muslim-ruled Spain.
Upon getting off, we were very hungry and searched for too long for food before deciding on a so-so place "Ohlalá" for nourishing bocadillos. We then had only an hour or so to catch the mezquita-catedral and we didn't have a hostal yet so went there with our rolling luggage in hand, bouncing along the narrow cobblestone roads.
The mosque-turned-cathedral is amazing and definitely one of the top historical architectures I've ever visited, with its hundreds of red and white arches.
Unfortunately, the original beauty of the mezquita is considerably marred by the walling in and conversion to a cathedral that was started in the 1200s, upon Córdoba's reconquest. While the entire building is rather incongruous, it does provide interesting juxtapositions for photographs. Like this crucifixion scene:
My favorite part of the building is the mihrab, from where prayers were led. It reminds me of the Spanish scenes in The Fountain.
After the mezquita we found a nice place to stay at 30 euros a night. It was called Pensión El Portillo. We dumped our stuff, got ready, and went out for tapas. And oh, what tapas we had. First stop was a buzzing place we had seen tucked away off Calle Judíos called Taberna Guzmán. The place is covered with bullfighting memorabilia and they serve a fantastic tapa called berenjenas aliñadas.
Our next stop was right near the hostal, appetizingly called "Taberna Sociedad de Plateros" (Silversmiths Society Tavern?) (Calle San Francisco 6). We had mouthwatering carne con tomate and torta de gambas in a cute covered patio with friendly waitstaff.
Aside from that we had a leisurely walk along the historic streets of near the mezquita, enjoying the warm Andalucian weather. In the morning, we breakfasted on fresh tartas del Alcázar and visited the Julio Romero de Torres Museum (famous Andalucía/flamenco culture paintins, free on Saturdas), the synagogue, and the Casa Andalusí (plenty of photo opps there). By mid-day we were on a long bus headed for Granada and the magical Alhambra.
In case you didn't know, Spaniards have a habit of taking an extra day off if it happens to fall between a Thursday or Tuesday holiday and the weekend. This is codified into many school calendars at various times throughout the year, and the result is referred to as a "bridge," or puente.
For our early December puente, we were very ambitious, and decided we could visit 3 cities in the south in 4 days. The first city we hit was beautiful Córdoba. After a quick chocolate and churros breakfast at El Brillante, we hopped on a Talgo express train from Atocha to Córdoba a city that harks back to Al-Andalus, or Muslim-ruled Spain.
Upon getting off, we were very hungry and searched for too long for food before deciding on a so-so place "Ohlalá" for nourishing bocadillos. We then had only an hour or so to catch the mezquita-catedral and we didn't have a hostal yet so went there with our rolling luggage in hand, bouncing along the narrow cobblestone roads.
The mosque-turned-cathedral is amazing and definitely one of the top historical architectures I've ever visited, with its hundreds of red and white arches.
Unfortunately, the original beauty of the mezquita is considerably marred by the walling in and conversion to a cathedral that was started in the 1200s, upon Córdoba's reconquest. While the entire building is rather incongruous, it does provide interesting juxtapositions for photographs. Like this crucifixion scene:
My favorite part of the building is the mihrab, from where prayers were led. It reminds me of the Spanish scenes in The Fountain.After the mezquita we found a nice place to stay at 30 euros a night. It was called Pensión El Portillo. We dumped our stuff, got ready, and went out for tapas. And oh, what tapas we had. First stop was a buzzing place we had seen tucked away off Calle Judíos called Taberna Guzmán. The place is covered with bullfighting memorabilia and they serve a fantastic tapa called berenjenas aliñadas.
Our next stop was right near the hostal, appetizingly called "Taberna Sociedad de Plateros" (Silversmiths Society Tavern?) (Calle San Francisco 6). We had mouthwatering carne con tomate and torta de gambas in a cute covered patio with friendly waitstaff.Aside from that we had a leisurely walk along the historic streets of near the mezquita, enjoying the warm Andalucian weather. In the morning, we breakfasted on fresh tartas del Alcázar and visited the Julio Romero de Torres Museum (famous Andalucía/flamenco culture paintins, free on Saturdas), the synagogue, and the Casa Andalusí (plenty of photo opps there). By mid-day we were on a long bus headed for Granada and the magical Alhambra.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
(Finally) picking up NIE cards. Plus, on sending overseas packages
A. and I were recently able to pick up our tarjetas de estudiante without any problems. Based on some advice from other people in my program, we went to the police station on General Pardiñas not as early as we could as we had previously done, but at 12:30 p.m. Like magic, there was almost no line, and we were brusquely whisked inside and attended to within less than an hour. Amazing. Seems they turn people away and weed through the line in the late morning/early afternoon. That, and they may actually make headway on the line for just picking up cards (takes about 60 seconds face time for each applicant). I still think things would be vastly improved if they were to have an efficient appointment setting mechanism, perhaps similar to the USCIS's InfoPass.
Now we possess the card that will allow to attest to our being here legally for a year and we can now travel worry-free. Interestingly, at the police station they didn't take from us the receipts proving we'd paid the card fee, which we had paid months earlier. Also, they didn't care at all that it had been more than 45 days since we had our appointment, which technically is the time frame during which you must retrieve your card.
In another overseas living adventure, I tried to mail a package to New York this past Friday. I chose UPS because I needed to be sure it would arrive and not get bogged down in Spain's domestic mail system. UPS only gives you the options of fast and faster, or Express and Express Plus (everything's by plane, and I kind of think they are losing out of a market for slightly slower but more affordable guaranteed shipping). I chose Express, which costs about half what Express Plus costs--still pricey at around 40 euros. The documents wouldn't have to pass customs and were supposed to arrive Monday by 10:30 a.m.
The package arrived today, two days late. That was due at first to an "exception" beyond UPS control (what it was attributed to I have no idea) and then later to a misrouting (which I believe falls within their control). In all, the package went from Madrid to Cologne, Germany, to Newark, NJ to Philadelphia, PA to Buffalo, NY. I'm planning to request a refund.
Now we possess the card that will allow to attest to our being here legally for a year and we can now travel worry-free. Interestingly, at the police station they didn't take from us the receipts proving we'd paid the card fee, which we had paid months earlier. Also, they didn't care at all that it had been more than 45 days since we had our appointment, which technically is the time frame during which you must retrieve your card.
In another overseas living adventure, I tried to mail a package to New York this past Friday. I chose UPS because I needed to be sure it would arrive and not get bogged down in Spain's domestic mail system. UPS only gives you the options of fast and faster, or Express and Express Plus (everything's by plane, and I kind of think they are losing out of a market for slightly slower but more affordable guaranteed shipping). I chose Express, which costs about half what Express Plus costs--still pricey at around 40 euros. The documents wouldn't have to pass customs and were supposed to arrive Monday by 10:30 a.m.
The package arrived today, two days late. That was due at first to an "exception" beyond UPS control (what it was attributed to I have no idea) and then later to a misrouting (which I believe falls within their control). In all, the package went from Madrid to Cologne, Germany, to Newark, NJ to Philadelphia, PA to Buffalo, NY. I'm planning to request a refund.
Teaching about my state Maryland
Earlier in November my mom visited (we had lots of fun, day-tripping to Toledo and whatnot). She came bearing gifts from back home, including natural peanut butter, an HP printer, and a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap. I had requested the last item so that I could make a poster all about me for school, not because I'm particularly fond of the team or anything.
Well, here are the results, although I've got to find a better way to hold up the baseball cap (tape doesn't cut it). It was in the now blank space between the oriole and crab:
I'm especially proud of my version of Maryland's flag. I had never realized how perfectly geometric it was until I sat down to cut it out of construction paper. I will be using the poster as a tool in English classes for upcoming units.
Well, here are the results, although I've got to find a better way to hold up the baseball cap (tape doesn't cut it). It was in the now blank space between the oriole and crab:
I'm especially proud of my version of Maryland's flag. I had never realized how perfectly geometric it was until I sat down to cut it out of construction paper. I will be using the poster as a tool in English classes for upcoming units.
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