I am also working on my language learning while I am here. I have been working with an amazing teacher here in Colombia through private virtual classes for the last 7 months, but I am so happy to be here and get to spend time learning with her in person. I have been reflecting a lot on who I am as a language learner over the past year, but especially since we arrived last week. English is privileged in so many ways not just in the U.S., but also in other countries, so I fully recognize that being a language learner of Spanish is not even remotely the same as students, particularly in the U.S., who are learning English. Yet, I think it is still important to reflect on these processes I am experiencing as a language learner.
Learning another language is hard in so many ways, and this move has reminded me of the huge role that emotions and anxiety play in language learning and use. For me, when I was attempting to study Spanish while living in the U.S., it was exactly that...studying Spanish because I wanted to improve. It wasn't a necessity in order to get medication, find the unscented laundry detergent, or just genuinely communicate with people in the home language of the country to develop relationships. It is here. I have spent quite a bit of time in bilingual classrooms over the years, and I feel comfortable in my receptive comprehension in those contexts. However, in those classrooms I bring so much background knowledge about the pedagogical and academic content that it greatly scaffolds my ability to understand.
In my daily life here I am trying to navigate new cultural practices and expectations, food I have never seen or heard of (which has all been delicious), orienting to a new city and transportation navigation, and attempting to communicate and build relationships. Sometimes it feels great and like it is going well, and then sometimes the second I don't know a word or two I completely panic thinking about the word and then miss the entire sentence. Then, all I can think about is how much I don't know and how am I going to catch back up in the conversation without completely embarrassing myself. And that is just the receptive part....I still feel so much anxiety about speaking. I am that language learner in your classroom- I have a lot of knowledge and experiences and emotional connections that I easily talk about in my home language, but I worry about how I will sound when I try to communicate that in another language. So much of my identity is wrapped up the ways I communicate. It is emotionally taxing and makes me reluctant to speak sometimes, and I am a professor who chose this and applied for this for her sabbatical. Just imagine how a five year old might feel on their first day of kindergarten.
I talk about this a lot when I am working with teachers, the importance of providing scaffolded opportunities for talk, but the necessity of first and foremost respecting students' emotions about sharing and speaking in a language that they are learning. Some students jump right in and don't mind approximations from the very beginning, but that can be very intimidating and stressful for others (even when teachers and peers are supportive). We always have to think of the human experience first, then find ways to support the language and communicative practices.
My two big reminders as a language learner this first week:
1. Context matters: Background knowledge and context completely change the ability to participate and contribute to our experiences in another language.
2. Emotions matter: Being able to communicate greatly impacts our identity and emotions. Be patient with us, it is hard to not yet be able to communicate in the ways that we want to.