On Speaking Spanish as a Professional

In my few interactions with professionals with whom I will be working side by side come January, it’s come glaringly to my attention how deficient I am in professional tools—most of all, in language.

In terms of the European framework of judging language level, I’m swimming somewhere in B1. Basically, this means that I have survival-level Spanish. I can also converse to some degree of theory on topics I am somewhat familiar with. With my teachers here, who are accustomed to my “special brand” of Spanish, I can usually get along decently well, as long as they’re willing to talk fairly slowly and/or repeat themselves, occasionally pause to explain new vocab, and sometimes explain in different ways. However, talking Spanish on my own in a school setting is a whole new ballpark.

Well, duh. None of this is surprising. That Spanish is more difficult out of the classroom is a given. It doesn’t help that there are those whose costeño accent is so thick that Colombians from other parts of the country have difficulty understanding (my principal happens to be endowed with this sort of accent…although everyone from the coast speaks in an altered accent to some degree).

 And yet, I didn’t take into account how much more difficult it is to speak Spanish in a formal setting when nervous. At my school, we held our first meeting in Spanish since la rectora was there and she doesn’t speak English. At the end, I spoke a little. I’d prepared some in my head, but the words, sentence structure, and what felt like rational thought absconded from my mind as soon as I opened my mouth. I stuttered over words I knew, through in some fake words, blushed away, and apologized profusely as I muttered my way to a close. 

Of course, being language teachers, the English teachers were awesome about understanding my predicament. And yet, they already see me as a “joven”—a youth—since I’m the same age or younger (23) as many of their children. The fact that I’m short and appear young otherwise doesn’t help my cause, either. Of course, I’ve been through this transition of others’ perceptions from youth to professional at my job at Epic, when I worked with CEOs and surgeons alike in an “advisor” capacity. However, getting to wear professional clothing and speak academic English helped my case quite a bit. Here, where skin-tight jeans and blouses are the norm (my skirts and shirts in their varied degrees of formality, in contrast, appear somewhat outlandish)…and I speak a broken, child-like version of the language…well, this transition of perception may take a while. 

Ultimately, until losing it, I hadn’t realized how tightly I clung to my language usage and abilities as a tool to shape others’ perceptions. I can’t even begin to explain how much more empathetic I feel towards non-native speaking professionals I’ve met in the US, whose communication ability so often shapes others’ perceptions of not only their competency but their intelligence. And in some ways, the perceptions reflect a degree of truth—without the ability to effectively communicate, some aspects of competency are certainly lowered. Yet intelligence isn’t! And too often we let those assumptions go hand in hand. Not that it’s a new goal, but I need to settle, take a deep breath, think, study, and hopefully use this next month prior to my official start of work to gain a little more solidity in the language, thus hopefully gaining in tandem the ability to establish myself as a professional and forge needed connections within my school. Just one more Peace Corps challenge…good thing I have two years to overcome it!

That Flexibility Thing

So, remember that whole post about… “Site Visit for Realsies,” is how I believe I put it…? Well, scratch that! The Monday after that visit, I told Olga, our wonderful amazing project manager, about my experience in order to talk through next best steps. Olga, however, took immediate action. Turns out the school was indeed on probation due to the former volunteers’ experiences. The fact that they never contacted me and didn’t have the wherewithal to even notify the English teachers I would be at the school seemed to be enough to convince Olga to take away its Peace Corps volunteer.

Having come to this conclusion, Olga notified the Secretary of Education in Bogota as well as the school and within the day she’d gotten a new school to commit to having me(!) I’m pretty sure she’s magic. After two months of coastal living, I had assumed this would take months rather than hours…but costeño time is a different topic entirely!

So, anyway, a brief rundown of my school is that it is…none other than the school I went to for my Field Practicum! So you can reference that post if you want to details. Highlights include that it is an all-girls school, the English coordinator is wonderful, there are seven English teachers to work with in addition to primary school teachers trying to start an English curriculum, and although the coordinator is wonderful there are many areas that can use improvement.

I never thought I’d ever say this, but I’m so excited to work in an all-girls’ school! Here, in a machismo culture where woman are almost uniformly expected to perform traditional gender roles, womanizing by single as well as married men is an open and accepted practice, small boy children are taught by their older relatives to yell disgusting things to women on the street, random men on sidewalks  mutter things into your ear like “Que linda, oh que bonita” and much worse, and even nice, perfectly respectable host fathers say things like, “I know you’re thinking this, but I’m just going to say it: Colombian men are hot…and there’s a rumor that we all have big penises. This isn’t necessarily true. But there is a reason for this rumor.” (word for word, I swear)…well, needless to say, mixed-gender classrooms of hormone-filled 15-18 year olds was going to be a tough one. I feel like this simplifies classroom management a huge amount!

In keeping with the model of efficiency that Olga is, she arranged for me to meet with the teachers and La Rectora—the principal—on Friday. We met for an hour to discuss arrangements like host families, a little bit about the coming year, and a few other sundries. It was easy to see that the teachers were united if not in teaching methodology, then in their care and concern for the welfare of the students. Although I came out of the meeting excited, as the teachers were wonderfully nice, I also left a little daunted as well. Why?

 I will be the first volunteer at this school. The teachers are all made up of the “old-guard” teachers—not new ones recently hired. There is no intrinsic push to develop a more holistic English program; instead, I will be interrupting momentum long-established. In the grammar v. conversational style of teaching, lines have already been drawn, and most ebb towards the grammatical teaching method, with no huge impetus to change.  Oh, and did I mention I have only a little formal teaching experience?

Obviously, I will have to emulate the change in the schools, as well as be extra clever in my work with the teachers to make the change an intrinsically driven one. It will have to be gradual. Fortunately, we have weeks of observing at the schools built in so that we can plan strategies. I will have to get to know these teachers before I know more about how I will approach this. Either way, I think that, especially for the first year, I will be doing more in-class teaching than I’d originally planned. However, having an amazing coordinator as well as a strongly united school should be amazing!

Immaculate Conception

Turns out, December 8^th in Barranquilla is the first official festival day of the holiday season. Some say that after this day, it’s the start of the festival season…as in, festivals and celebrations start now and pick up until Carnival, which happens the first week of February. While I can’t vouch for that, I can say that I have never heard of a holiday with such a religious name comprise so much fiesta-ing!

Technically the day celebrates the immaculate conception of Mary..which involves the concept that in order for Mary to be a virgin her mother would have had to be immaculate as well…so apparently this transformation took place on the eighth. I could be quite wrong about this. But I’m pretty sure that was explained to me in English, so who knows!

The formal tradition of the night includes candle processions, where children and adults carry small candles in lanterns made of colored saran-wrap and wood through the streets. Perhaps not the most fire resistant materials, but they look pretty! Some women even dressed in beautiful traditional costumes, including white tops and full skirts embroidered with colorful threads and splashed with glitter.

The parties started the evening of December 7^th. Many families had parties that night for various things before the holiday festivities started; I ended up at a volunteer’s family’s celebration for a high school graduation where their uncle cooked chicken with mushroom and Jamaica flowers, carrot rice, and a mashed potato soufflé of some sort. Delicious. 

As a sidenote, I’ve finally figured out that there is a distinct difference between “reunions” and “fiestas,” even though they can be comprised of the same people, and both are almost always attended by family members and close family friends from ages zero to ninety. In case you were interested, turns out a “reunion” is the sitting thing, where everyone sits in a circle and has a progressive dinner with such delicacies as bologna wrapped dates and tuna rice. A fiesta is lots of drinking and dancing. Events such as birthdays or graduations can be celebrated with either reunions or fiestas. Both are considered highly important, both are full of family (as in, fiestas are not just for young people and/or friends) but they are very different, and the two words are never swapped, here…which leads me to believe my family thinks I’m a crazy partier, since I’ve told them I’ve gone to multiple “fiestas”…except sometimes these were “parties” of the American style…such as “baking parties,” where we made cookies.  And ate them. And ate some more. Anyway. Fun cultural distinction of the week!

But back to the Immaculate Conception--having thought that my abuelos had mentioned a family event, I went home around midnight to see what was going on. They were highly surprised to see me, expecting me to be traipsing around the streets all through the night, as apparently all the other normal, non-septuagenarian Barranquillans were. But with taxi prices shooting sky high, I couldn’t afford to travel solo to any other place in the city, so I took a catnap until 4am. After my senile grandpa got over his surprise that I was in the house for a second time, we lit candles underneath the lanterns, turned on our very own competing sound system, and sat outside our house to listen to the smorgasbord of Colombian music exhaling from each doorstep while the sun rose. We sat there until every last of the ten candles had burned to the tile, and I retired to my room around eight. 

A bit anti climactic after all the buildup for this holiday, but I guess I have a few more years to get this one right!

Pictures of our pretty candle row:

Sun has risen

Site Visit for Realsies

So, a few weeks ago we visited volunteers at their sites to see how a “real” school functioned; this week, we visited the schools that will be our very own for the next two years!

The week kicked off with a “conference,” where during Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning we all met with our Colombian teacher counterparts at a local hotel in Barranquilla to have introductions and go over expectations, project details, et cetera. The idea was that each school would send a teacher or administrator—the teachers from Santa Marta and Cartagena even traveled to Barranquilla for the meeting.

Of course, attendance got a little tricky, since the director of both my school and another volunteer’s failed to alert any teachers about the conference. Which meant that our awesome program administrator got on the phone with whomever it took to fix this issue—including, in the other volunteer’s school’s case, the secretary of education in Bogota. 

As for me, my school answered Olga’s call by grabbing the nearest English teacher they could find and sending her on over (interrupting her daily activities and not giving her any information, of course). However, Shirley, the teacher I got to meet and shadow, is wonderful. She’s 26, speaks incredible English, and is the newest teacher at the school, having started just this past September. The first things about teaching at this school out of her mouth included statements such as, “I think we can really improve things a lot. The curriculum isn’t very holistic and there isn’t enough focus on speaking and listening.” Which are only the subjects most emphasized for us volunteers to attack(!) She’s done amazing projects with her students and is incredibly sweet, as well. The only thing I worry about with her is that seems like they’re really dumping a ton of work on her, as her hours are long and she teaches English classes to grades three, four, five, six, seven, ten, and eleven (!) 

The absolute worst of all of Shirley’s situation is that Shirley shared with me that she has had to lessen the amount of English she speaks in class. Why oh why would she have to do this? Because her students don’t understand? Nope. Because she finds it too difficult to do? Nope. Beeeecause, the other teachers and her boss became resentful of her language abilities and thought she was trying to show off when she taught her classes mostly in English. As the new teacher, she couldn’t risk her boss holding a grudge, so she took it down a notch. She tells me she hopes things will be better this coming year, and she can speak more English, because, as she said to me, “how else will the students learn the language?”

I got a little more clarity on the subject when I briefly met the head of the English department. (She’s the one to whom every teacher has to submit lesson plans for approval, and has designed a highly restrictive, grammar-oriented curriculum everyone is mandated to follow). Her English is…not so good. I think she was partially nervous trying to talk to me, but the differences between her English and Shirley’s were staggering. After speaking a few broken English sentences to me, she gave up and spoke instead in rapidfire Spanish while Shirley translated…So we could be in for some awkwardness on this one. 

In terms of my school itself—it’s both a primary and secondary school with grades K-11. With a total student count of just under 800 students, it’s pretty small, in Colombian public-school terms. There are four English teachers with various degrees of English proficiency who all hold at least one other job.

In addition, from what I’ve gathered, it’s been a difficult school in general because there’s seemingly not a central push from the director to make the Peace Corps presence anything of great note, and the teachers are so busy that they are certainly not planning to change the structure of their days around me. (I actually heard a rumor that the last volunteer recommended that my school be taken off the list of PC-patronized schools for something of this reason. Hrrmm.)

As for the visit itself, there’s not much more to say. This week wasn’t exactly the typical school week for students. As in, the vast majority of students (as well as teachers) simply weren’t around; regular school finished last week, and this was the week to deal with grades and students in danger of failing. Grades were due on Friday, but before grades can be given, the failing students have to be passed. In Colombia, only a very small percentage of students are “allowed” to fail, by law. For students who currently have failing grades, this was the week these students are supposed to be “caught up,” and then given a second test so they can not-fail. But, if the student is failing three or more subjects at the end of all this, he is held back a grade. While I was visiting, there was a small boy in absolute tears being comforted by a math teacher. Turns out he’d failed not only math, but English and something else as well. Shirley comforted him—“Tranquila, mi amor,” and the teachers all rallied to try and help him pass at least one subject. 

I don’t know how that all turned out, however, because turned out that afternoon was my first and last day visiting the school. In a twist not unlike some of my other fellow volunteers’, I wasn’t invited back for any sort of follow-up visit, since during this week no one at school was really around and no one had communicated about or planned for my visit. I have to say, it was a little disappointing. However, since the teachers were either on vacation or just doing grades, I’m hoping this was more about the timing of the site visit, and less a harbinger of things to come.

Meanwhile, the only other interesting thing I was able to see at school was Shirley prepping for her review. Since she’s new at the school she’s on “probation.” Here in Colombia, under the new reforms, the newest teachers have reviews each year. Shirley had collected samples of her material from the last few months she was at school, made copies, burned CDs, and generally had an impressive portfolio assembled. She had to “prove” that she’s taught effectively, which meant lesson plan examples, grades, tests, other project examples, etc. Certainly not a project for the disorganized! It was clear she should do amazingly on her review, so hoping that all goes well for her.

Whew. Long update! Anyway, in other news, having only one afternoon at the school meant…free days for Emily! 

Since I have no pictures of the school (thinking I’d be back during the week meant I didn’t bring a camera on Tuesday), here is a sampling of how I filled my days:

Strolling the streets and catching up on Barranquilla fashion:  

Making a delicious pan of brownies out of the mix my wonderful parents sent me in my very first care package:

 …And devouring it all in one sitting with two other obliging volunteers(!):

(As a small sidenote, chocolate here, to my great dismay, costs a PREMIUM. This brownie session was the culmination of seven weeks of chocolate frustration. It was amazing.)

The Barranquilla volunteers recorded a podcast on Chance’s awesome technology (yes, he somehow managed to fit those microphones into his suitcase…and you can catch the broadcast on peacecorpspodcast.com if you’re so inclined)

And taking a turn downtown at El Mercado, the city market that sells just about everything you’d ever want or need, where I purchased the Divinci Code in Spanish because I wanted a taste of great literature. Just kidding. (Turns out reading translated fluff is super good for learning Spanish!)

 Anyway, this is the statue outside the little city library near the market commemorating Barranquilla’s independence: