imaginary spanish

I think the beginning and end of each day should have time set aside for taking account. Maybe it starts out with everyone writing whatever comes to mind, then sharing what they want to and filling in what’s been missed—not the whole day will be passed in discussion, there will also be plenty of silent reading and writing, during which time the teacher is able to get some marking done, so as to respond promptly to the work students are doing.

But this is a scenario that cannot be dramatically portrayed here; let us leave it and have a look at a language lesson. Etymologies will be a constant part of the teaching: every time an interesting or substantial connection may be brought out it is worth doing—‘goodbye,’ ‘like,’ ‘inspire,’ ‘lunatic’--every word has a story, and stories are the essence of the new school. But the kind of language lesson I mean right now is the slightly more systematic foreign language teaching that will be undertaken. For a couple years, very little kids will have an introduction to the language through games, songs, picture books. Then around third grade, their first real lesson will go something like this:

‘Clase, class, os voy a contar un cuento, I'm going to tell you a story, my own history, of learning Spanish. La historia de como iba aprendiendo el castellano, I didn't start to learn Spanish until I was 11. Cuantos años teneis? How old are you, Michael?

‘Eight.’

‘Tienes ocho años, y ya llevas dos o tres aprendiendo el castellano. Dichoso edad de oro. Lucky you. You've already been learning for two or three years. Y cuando por fin empezaba a estudiar el castellano, mi maestro no me ensenaba en el idioma. Os pregunto, como vamos a aprender un idioma sin oirlo y hablarlo? Por el otro lado, es posible dejarse llevar. Entendeis? Do you understand?

[nos, also some yeses from Spanish-speaking students]

‘Cuando estudiaba el castellano—when I was studying Spanish—me tardaba muy largo en aprenderlo—I took a long time to learn it—porque mis maestros—because my teachers—no hablaban con nosotros estudiantes en castellano—did not talk with us students in Spanish. Ahora acabo de hablar en castellano—just now I was talking in Spanish—y nadie me entendio, excepto que Wendy, Samuel, Darren y Anita—and no one understood me but Wendy, Samuel, Darren and Anita--vosotros cuatro podeis ser mis ayudantes para enseñar a los otros y corregirme cuando me equivoque?’

‘Si.’

‘Primero, Darren, puedes decirles a los otros lo que habeis prometido?’

‘Because we know Spanish, us four are going to help teach you.’

‘Y algo mas.’

‘Corregir.’

‘And also correct you when you make mistakes.’

‘Porque me equivoco mucho. Gracias. Una pregunta, Anita?’

‘No usamos “vosotros.”'

‘Tampoco.’

‘Si, hablaremos de esto pronto. Ahora, solo necitais saber que es lo mismo que "ustedes," y cambia en los verbos un poco como "tu." Ya verais. Lo siento clase, problemas de gramatica—pero la gramatica es importante, por lo menos tan importante como en ingles—grammar might be even more important to comprehension in Spanish. Bueno, donde estamos, y a donde ibamos?—Where were we, and where were we going? Vemos que no es posible aprender inmediatamente la lengua por oirla—We're seeing it isn’t possible to learn right away by hearing the language—ni es bien esperar muchos anos sin hablarla—nor is it good to wait many years without speaking it. Aunque sois chicos, no sois bebes—although you’re young, you aren’t babies—y aunque aprendisteis la primera lengua sin saber otra, ahora sabeis otra a la cual necesitamos añadir el espanol—although you learned your first language without knowing any other, now you do know a language and we have to add Spanish to it. Nuestro metodo—our method—sera lo que fue popularizada por Michel Thomas—will be the one made popular by Michel Thomas—caballero muy interesante—a very interesting gentleman—que tuve la suerte de conocer—whom I had the good luck to meet. Construiremos relaciones entre los idiomas—we will build up relationships between the languages—usando el hecho—using the fact—que ellos son relacionados en sus raices—that they are related in their roots. So far I’ve been speaking and translating—estoy hablando y traduciendo—pero me gustaria hablar con vosotros un poco—but I would like to talk with you a little bit before we go outside—antes de que salgamos afuera para jugar—to play. It’s nothing hard—no es nada dificil—it’s very easy—es muy facil. Os digo algo—I’ll say something to you—y lo me repeteis—and you’ll repeat it to me. Aqui va la primera palabra—here comes the first word: que.

‘Que.’

‘Que means the same as what. Que significa what en ingles. Que significa que? What does que mean?

‘What.’

‘Bien. Good. This is a phrase that should be very useful—esta frase debe ser muy util—because whenever I say something you don’t understand, you can ask me, que significa? What does it mean?

‘Que significa?’

‘Right.’

So there’s our introduction to the Spanish language, and the same method will be used for French, Italian and the rest. I actually still need to look up some stuff about Michel Thomas; I wish I really had met him, because he does sound incredible. If at all possible I will use his method--which really is nothing more or less than building up fluency word by word, almost ineffably-- and seek the approval of his estate in order to do so. As we get further along in knowledge of the language the delivery will slowly turn over more and more to Spanish until Spanish is spoken exclusively during class, except for a new vocabulary word here and there given in English as well. At this point the focus will shift from the structure and vocabulary of the language itself to more discussions of the culture, current and past, of the countries and their environs, the geography, history, and personality of the places this language lives. With sufficient fluency in the language and a sense of culture and history established, we will deepen out knowledge by going to the source—by which I mean both encouraging study abroad and hitting the books, the great works of the foreign tongue fitting naturally into the core enterprise of the new school.

For Spanish we will have our medieval romances, the Cid, the Book of Good Love, the Count Lucano, Lazarillo, Teresa de Avila, San Juan, Bartolome de las Cases, the Quijote, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Garcia Lorca, Juan Ramon, Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno, and Rodo, Dario, Marti, Asturias, Mistral, Neruda, Marquez, Pagano—a haphazard list, but a start, anyway. We will listen to Don Giovanni and read Don Juan, and seek out the intimations of the country’s true character by the aid of such exaggerations and idealizations. We will consider the diversity, from the Celtic north to the African south, the cosmopolitan east, the New World, the invincible fiasco'd Armada, the Roman influence and the Spanish Emperors of Rome, and the major influence of the Moors' convivencia, followed by the reconquest, the colonies' exploitation and independence, the conservative streak and the revolutions, the Civil Wars and World Wars, and what has happened since.

I myself know very little about any of this, but I know it is worth learning. Spanish has a particular attraction for me, which may for the moment be summed up in the concept of the siesta and the beauty of its homes, human and environmental. We’ll also bring in Latin America, the magical realists, Borges, liberation theology, Incan myth, caudillos, the crushing poverty and deforestation, the aggressive investment in biofuels. I know if possible even less about all this, but again it is fascinating, full of possibilities.

And so on with each foreign language we could possibly learn: a world of evocations, of cultural riches free for the swimming in, Scrooge MacDuck-like, and of actual people across times and places. And language-learning becomes at once a metaphor for, and the clearest literal manifestation of, the real value of learning so as to communicate with this revealed world.