Second Language Learning

Maybe I am built differently from other people, but I don't think so. The single most important aid to my learning new things is NOT the specifics of the didactic method used, not the spiffiness of the materials, not the appeal to my visual-versus-auditory-versus-kinetic-learner tendencies, but simply, encouragement.

Toward the end of our first year in Panama I was taking Rich's visiting brother and nieces on a sightseeing tour. My Spanish was still fledgling, but increasingly functional. In Casco Viejo, the beautiful, old, colonial downtown neighborhood, we entered the National Institute of Culture building, partly because it has an interesting mural of Panamanian history, but more importantly because I know where the public bathrooms are in that building. The girls went off in the direction of the bathrooms and I tarried in the grand vestibule where Larry was looking at the mural. Larry is fluent in Spanish and brilliant in general, so I was generally reluctant to speak Spanish with him in earshot. As he moved farther away I noticed an older man in a crisp, white guayabara looking at me questioningly. He was clearly on duty as a tourist guide, so I greeted him politely and asked a question about the mural.

Now whenever a foreigner speaks to a native Panamanian, one of two things happens. By far the most common is that the Panamanian's face morphs quickly from its neutral or smiling expression into one of concentration; brow furrowed, slight frown about the mouth, and lifted eyebrows, intent on puzzling out what the foreigner is saying in their strongly-accented Spanish. This man was different. As I began to speak, his face relaxed into an encouraging smile and he nodded slightly as I went on. The effect was magical! I found words I didn't even knew I knew; I made fewer mistakes than I ever had; I was actually happy to be speaking my second language! We chatted for about 15 minutes, about the history of the Ministry of Culture, about his job, about my home country, about the climate. I felt as if I came of age in that conversation. No longer a toddler or even an adolescent, I could finally be seen - and more importantly, FEEL - as an adult in my new language.

In the book Dreaming in Hindi the author delves into the current research on second language acquisition to annotate her memoir about learning Hindi. All of it was fascinating, but the point that resonated most strongly with me was that human beings have a powerful drive to learn language, which flowers during the first few years of life, and during that initial phase of language acquisition a child generally receives positive affirmation every step of the way. A toddler, being cute and cuddly, is apt to be sitting on someone's lap, literally in the lap of emotional luxury, as the adult says, smilingly, "That's right! Horsie!" And in the child's limbic system, where emotional literacy is laid down powerfully while the word is cognitively absorbed, the pleasure of learning cements the deal.

Second language learners, especially in adulthood, get little or none of this encouragement. We are greeted with funny looks, well-meant but emotionally derailing corrections, and even attempts to change the conversation into English, as if we are hopeless in the adopted tongue. This last response drives Rich crazy. His Spanish is excellent, especially for a foreigner who learned it 40 years ago and has had little opportunity to speak it since, and he always feels slighted when Panamanians refuse to speak Spanish with him. Some of the staff at school, whose English is far more limited than his Spanish, insist on speaking halting English with him and on those days he comes home feeling insulted and defeated. I point out that in all likelihood the Panamanian is trying to be generous, trying to make it easier for him, although it doesn't make logical sense, and I'm not even sure of that. Is it somehow threatening for a foreigner to speak one's language? Do they just want more practice speaking English? Or is it wrapped up somehow with our North American colonial past in Panama that has spawned an odd combination of cultural insecurity and fierce national pride?