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Speak Spanish, si, conjugate verbs, no
A boy came into the peer tutoring class at my daughter's middle school looking for help on his Spanish I homework. The teacher turned to the two native speakers in the class and asked them to help. They happily agreed.
"What do you need?" one of them asked.
"Well," said the boy, "I don't understand how to conjugate these irregular verbs."
"Say what?" the two answered. "We have no idea what that is."
My daughter, who is making an A in Spanish II but is far from fluent, took a look. "Oh, yeah," she said. "This is what you do. Basically, you just have to memorize these ones that aren't like the others."
And that's how she became this boy's Spanish tutor. This made me laugh. Kids who speak Spanish can't teach it, but a kid who doesn't speak Spanish can?
We don't teach speakers of Spanish how to write, read and speak correctly in their native language until maybe high school or college -- if ever.
And apparently, we don't teach them enough about conjugating verbs in English that it makes sense to them in Spanish, too.
I've been told that this lack of correct Spanish is a pretty big issue for Spanish-language media, which often ends up passing over American employees in favor of people who have studied Spanish in their home countries the way that we study English.
It's too bad that schools in the United States can't teach native Spanish speakers about the structure of their own language while also teaching them English. Maybe if we did that, we could also teach Spanish to the English-only masses while they are still young enough to absorb new languages -- in elementary and middle school, not beginning in high school.
Ours is one of the few countries in the world with such poor instruction in foreign languages. Don't you think that should change?
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Comments
Hi Vicki.
It's not all that surprising. No more than an English-speaking kid who can't explain grammar rules. (Sad, but true.)
Just because a person can speak English doesn't mean he/she can teach it.
Posted by: anne | March 6, 2008 5:53 PM
I am a native English speaker who started studying Spanish in 8th grade. And when I took a college level Spanish grammar class as an exchange student in Costa Rica (I was the only English speaker in the class), it actually helped me understand more about English grammar. And yes, I know much more about Spanish grammar than my native Spanish speaker colleagues.
Grammar isn't easy, no matter where you're coming from.
Posted by: amy | March 7, 2008 11:19 PM
I studied Spanish for a long time in school. I definitely know more about grammar than my native Spanish speaking friends. I know that when I went to school they had a Spanish for Spanish-speakers class. It was like an English grammar class, from what I'm told. Honestly, I think the teachers are probably trying to ensure that English grammar is taught - something that can be difficult in South Florida. I don't think it's appropriate to teach Spanish grammar, unless it's done in the form of an elective. Teaching Spanish should not take away from teaching kids English. I know a lot of the elementary schools have Spanish as a specials class now, which is a great idea.
Posted by: Amy | March 10, 2008 8:01 AM
Hi, I lived in Spain for 2 years since age 10 to 12, and learnt the language whilst in the deep end. Your posts have made me giggle, whilst in my "lenguaje" lessons I always came top becuase I studied my conjugations, whilst my Spanish friends always managed to flunk.
Since then I have moved back to England, took the GSCE and Alevel and am now tutoring Spanish myself, tonights lesson is in fact those horrible irregular verbs....my adult students seem to be the worse at picking these up...hmmm
:->
Posted by: Jess | December 9, 2008 5:00 AM