May 2007
Before
I left England in order to prepare myself for life in Latin America I enrolled
for private tuition to learn Spanish. At a fee of £20 (almost $40)
per hour the cost soon became prohibitive and I abandoned class after only
2 weeks. Undeterred I purchased a set of “Teach Yourself Spanish”
CD’s vowing to devote at least an hour a day to mastering the language.
The CD’s came in very useful, as coffee mats, and so when I boarded the
plane heading for South America my Spanish was still at the hello, how
are you stage.
I figured I
would pick it up as I went along and to some degree I did. But I was sharply
reminded of how awful my grasp was when I had to call on my 7 year old
daughter to translate a relatively simple request to the local electricity
company. The customer service person behind the desk didn’t understand
my “Gringospeak”. I knew the right words but my pronunciation let
me down badly. Why did she understand my daughter and not me?
Simple. I had mercilessly thrown my daughter in to a totally Spanish speaking
school and within a few short months she was not only fluent but sounded
like a local and could understand and be understood. Lesson learned.
The most effective method of learning another language is to be immersed
in the right environment, expose yourself to the language, listen, repeat
and practice conversation.
Clearly I hadn’t
done this sufficiently during the time I had spent in Argentina and decided
that I needed some extra input. There had to be some Spanish schools
nearby and I was confident tuition fees would be much lower than those
in England. Then I thought about Nora.
During my recent
visit to the western Argentinian town of General Alvear I had the pleasure
of meeting Nora Oller, professor and director of the Bethel Institute,
an English Language school located there. I was very pleased to learn
that the school also takes English speakers and turns them into proficient
Spanish speakers either by weekly lessons or intensive courses.
Nora is a delightful
lady who graduated as a teacher of English at Mendoza University in 1988.
Shortly after graduating she departed for Canada along with her husband,
intending to stay for a year in order to consolidate her teaching qualification
and live in an English speaking country for practice. In fact she
stayed there for 12 years through visa extensions until finally attaining
Canadian citizenship. During this time she taught basic level English
to Spanish speakers who needed a bilingual teacher, and more advanced classes
composed of sometimes up to 12 different nationalities.
I wondered
why she had come back to General Alvear after such a long time in Canada
given that she was now a citizen and had given birth there to her son,
Renzo, now aged 15. “Well” she said, “Alvear is home, it’s the ‘City of
Friends’. This is where my family and friends are, this is home”.
I had been
in Alvear long enough to know what she meant. The small town charm
embraces you the moment you set foot there. The locals are courteously
curious towards foreigners and ask lots of questions. Another reason
to kick yourself for not having better Spanish as you realise you miss
countless opportunities for endless interesting conversation.
Nora told me
that she knew of locals who would be willing to open their homes to foreign
students enrolled for intensive Spanish courses at the institute. Integrating
in to the community in this way would doubtless enhance the experience
and speed up the process for the learner. For students not wanting
to be this intensive there are alternative places to stay. Low cost
bed & breakfasts, hotels or self catering accommodation are available
and can be arranged through contacting Nora at the institute.
What a student
will not be able to escape is the inclusion in an asado. A
big meat roast over wood coals with locally produced wine and maybe even
an authentic gaucho band. Ok so there is no good reason to
have a get together, no problem, let’s invent one. This tight knit family
oriented community is not so tightly bound that it cannot be loosened to
include new found friends.
A two week
intensive course of around 20 – 25 hours of tuition per week would see
you to a good proficient conversational level. A month would be better
and enable you to engage in more in depth conversation and read and write
to a reasonable standard. “Of course, it all depends on the individual
student” Nora explained. “Some learn quicker than others”.
Nora is clearly
devoted to teaching and the American expat who introduced her to me told
me that she is particularly skillful in recognizing when you are “just
not getting it” and then explaining things in a different way. He
also told me that she is willing to conduct lessons “out in the field”,
the local ice cream parlour being one of the favoured locations. |
