Spanish as a Foreign Language Teaching - Looking Back

Many of us take a moment at the beginning of a new year to think about the year that’s past, a special type of reflection about where we are right now and where we are heading in the future.

I found my mind drifting toward that familiar place of introspection, reflecting on the current situation in regards to research within the field of foreign language teaching methodology, more specifically Spanish as a foreign language teaching, when suddenly I had a soothing vision. It was a vision full of harmony, not unlike a field of wheat gently stirred by the evening breeze. Yes, what I am trying to say is that in the last few years we haven´t had any downpours of innovation to shake up our method of teaching like a stormy northwest wind over a tempestuous sea.

What a contrast these past few years have been in comparison to the last century, full of methodological revolutions!  Back then, every five-year-period we changed our methods because someone had demonstrated that the method before was ineffective, boring, out-of-date or simply not useful. Even the most passionate of teachers, of whom I must include myself in all my foolish boldness, had the nerve to look down on teachers that used “old-fashioned” methods with a certain sense of superiority. What incredible times those were! I often found myself using terms I hadn’t even had time to digest, but which gave my speech an air of method modernity.

When I look back on it, I realize they were exciting times that totally transformed me. They barely lasted fifteen years, but I felt like I’d gone to sleep in the 19^th century and woken up in the 21^st. There were moments when this journey in time lead to some situations that were bizarre, absurd even remembering them from the perspective I have now: I tried to get my Spanish students to tell me a story in the past tense without offering any grammatical explanations. When a student (or was it a learner, definitely not a student, because mine didn’t have any notes to go over much less study) asked me “WHYYYY do I have to say estaba instead of estuve?” while desperately clawing at his cheeks, I’d think to myself “here we go, another traditional type, we have to over grammar! Then I would respond using my theory resources, which were none other than those traditional, nineteenth century, unfashionable grammar lessons that I would later criticize when talking with colleagues.

Plenty of modernity, yet poorly absorbed… but I was a modern teacher. I would finish class with a relaxation exercise and a mind map that would leave my students staring at the chalk board with eyes wide open, a gaze that I interpreted as admiration. Then I’d head to the teacher’s lounge completely full of myself thinking, they were on the verge of giving me standing ovation back there.

Later, self evaluation time came (when many were on the verge of tears, in fact I think a few did cry) and my results evaluation (when I was on the verge of tears, in fact at one point I think I did cry).

They were difficult times; with some activities, it took longer to explain the task than it took to do the task itself, and I had to explain it all in Spanish, never allowing myself to think “man, this guy is stubborn”. But if these method innovations taught me anything, they taught me to talk to my students, to listen to them (to listen to them with my head and my heart, with respect and the desire to learn) and when you listen, you learn.

I think we all learned, and like an open buffet, we take the best of each dish, we adapt it to our individual circumstances, and we learn that we make the journey by journeying, we improve by reflecting, and we learn more when listening than when speaking.

Today I’m at the bookshop, and I don’t see any popular new methods. Everything I do see however contains something interesting, and that tells me that ours is a multi-dimensional profession, one that ranges from the emotional to the coldest of intellectual sciences. We hit on a little of everything, and luckily for us, we don’t get hit back too hard!