Learn to be a Spanish-as-a-second-language teacher<

Learn to be a Spanish-as-a-second-language teacher

Although I focused my career towards science rather than languages, they have always had a large part in my life. I attended an Italian Liceo (high school)  during my primary and secondary schooling so I have learnt to speak Spanish from a young age. Learning a language when you are very young is much simpler as we can gradually incorporate it and it stays ingrained in our brains; even if many years pass without using it, we never forget it all. At university I studied in Italy for a year and despite not having spoken the language for a while, it was not difficult to remember it and after a few weeks I grasped it perfectly again.

I am aware, however, that this isn´t a normal situation for a person that studies other languages. The more common situation is learning a language when we are older, sometimes when we are well into our thirties or older. In my case, I started to learn English when I was a teenager, so learning this language has  been ongoing up until now, not in a school anymore but as a daily manner of communicating. On the other hand, I started to learn Japanese about 3 years ago, a radically different language to all those that I had previously studied. In the cases of both English and Japanese, I have realised something that I think is very important, and it´s that it doesn´t matter how much grammar you study or how many exercises you do, ultimately it is daily practice, especially real life communication circumstances, that makes you improve and ingrains what you have learnt.

I have been in both situations, both in learning a language from a young age, and learning other languages as an adult. It is easy to understand the difficulties that a person who studies other languages finds, especially if they are very different to their mother tongue or if the person in question doesn´t have the ability to embrace the new language.

I have always enjoyed learning other languages, because as the travel lover that I am, I think of language as a essential vehicle for getting to know other cultures, worlds and people. In a way, perhaps on a scientific level, I am fascinated by the variety of languages and ways of expressing oneself that exist between people in different parts of the world. I love being able to communicate with other people and cultures  thanks to languages; it is a way of opening the door to a rich and enormous world. From all of this arises the need to help other people to gain this foreign language skill so they are able to communicate with other cultures, peoples, to get to know other places, open their minds, explore, and travel.... and from there, the impulse to teach Spanish as a second language. I have never had the opportunity to teach a class as such. I have only had brief language exchange experiences at spontaneous sessions organised with friends or acquaintances. At these sessions, I realised that teaching a language is not at all easy, even if it is your mother tongue. I also learned that it depends upon the needs of the person that you are teaching.

Upon finishing this course, I have learnt a lot about how to, and how not to, teach a language and about the difficulties of this process. I think we learn most when designing the learning unit as it is at this time that you apply what you have learnt on the course. You also realise that is not at all easy to follow a plan and to contextualise activities without losing pace, quality, and originality.

Lastly, I would like to thank my teacher, Alfredo, for his help during this course. I would also like to recommend this course to all those who want to enter this world of teaching Spanish as a foreign language, a world that I think is fascinating in which you never cease to be a student with things to learn.