ReaganGraeve

Hablar. Habló. Hablara. Talk. Talked. Will talk. But how will you talk? The conjugations, spelling and pronunciation of two words with the same meaning are totally different. These two word variations come from Spanish and English. 

However, this is just an example of two languages. With more than 7,000 different languages in the world, you would think it would be easy to master at least a few. Senior Beverly Vargas and Mr. John Paul Franco, a Spanish teacher from the World Language department, have both mastered a language that was not native to them. If a child only speaking Spanish can learn English, how does this compare to an adult only speaking English learning Spanish?

As the brain’s plasticity begins to solidify and it becomes harder to create neural pathways as we age, learning a new language can become more difficult, but definitely not impossible. 

Franco began his Spanish journey like many: in grade school learning the basics like colors and numbers. When classes became more challenging at Creighton Prep, Franco realized that he wasn’t a fan. “I didn’t really like it, I wasn’t very good at it.” 

After two years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Franco was inspired to pick up a Spanish course by members of his extended family who happen to be bilingual. Although he struggled in high school, Franco was a gold star student in Spanish 101 at Lincoln. “I was flying through it. You learn things so much better when you’re passionate about it or interested in it.”

Franco describes the Introductory level courses of college to be similar to courses at Marian. However, Spanish IV, a year long course at Marian, would only be a semester long at a university. Learning is different for everyone. 

Franco found during his last two years at Lincoln that “reading was the easiest, then speaking, and then listening is still sometimes difficult for me.” He continued with Spanish studies at University of Nebraska-Omaha before earning an education degree at Creighton to become a Spanish teacher.  

Although he’s had a lengthy Spanish education in the classroom, Franco found he learned the most through his experience being totally immersed in the language. 

“For me, I felt like I kind of solidified and became fluent when I spent a summer at an immersion school with a tutor for four hours a day in Guatemala. I stayed with a host family. There really wasn’t a lot of English speaking happening. It was exhausting and I remember after the fourth week, my brain got pretty tired. But that’s really where I felt like I took all these things that I kind of knew, and I learned how to hear it. That was the first time I started feeling like I’m not thinking about what I’m saying, I’m just saying it,” Franco said. 

Franco said speaking Spanish is “super fun and there’s not a feeling quite like it. It makes you feel a part of something. There’s so many people on the planet that I can communicate with now and before I couldn’t.” 

Senior Beverly Vargas grew up in a mainly Spanish-speaking household. On her first day of preschool, she discovered she had much more to learn than just 1-2-3’s and A-B-C’s. Mastering a whole new language was on the agenda. She had to learn how to speak using English nouns, verbs, articles, and grammar; the whole nine yards (and obviously Americanized idioms). Luckily, Vargas’ mom had some experience with English and was able to teach Beverly and her older brother a few of the basics prior to starting school. “She would teach us little words like spider, tree, and phrases like “What’s your name?” Vargas said. 

Vargas really started learning through the ESL (English as a Second Language) program at Blumfield in first grade. Small classrooms of kids received help with pronunciation and extra time to work on readings. “Spending time in school with all the English speakers helped me the most,” Vargas said. By the second grade, Vargas was able to communicate with all of her classmates without hesitation.

Vargas had successfully learned how to not only speak but to read and write in another language, but was struggling to apply the same skills to her native language. Without being taught literacy Spanish, Vargas was only confident about her speaking abilities. On her trips to Mexico to visit her grandparents, Vargas found herself immersed in Spanish not only through conversations (like in the States), but also in writing on signs, magazines and books everywhere around her. She began to see her words on paper.

Vargas is currently in Honors Spanish V. “People think Spanish classes are easy for me but they’re really not.” Although Vargas has always spoken Spanish, mastering grammar is a whole other challenge, no matter what language. 

Spanish class for Beverly would be comparable to an English class for middle schoolers to help them perfect their sentence structures, word tense, spelling, comprehension and fluency. “When you’re speaking you don’t think about what you’re doing. You don’t think you’re conjugating. I didn’t know what the subjunctive or imperfect was. All those tenses I didn’t even know existed. Even now I feel like I still struggle sometimes in standardized testing.”

At home, Vargas and her mom make an effort to speak English with each other for practice. Vargas even tries to practice English with her younger brother to help him adjust to school. “It’s harder for kids to master one language when they live in a household that speaks a mix of two languages,” Vargas said. She teaches him English through word repetition. “I feel like I’m still not proficient, but overall I’m glad I know English. Being able to translate helps with my job at Home Depot and I’m happy I can help my community communicate.” 

Most people don’t just wake up one day being perfectly fluent in a language after doing Duolingo for a week. Learning a language often takes a great deal of time and concentration. Even though Franco has studied Spanish for years, he still finds himself “constantly learning new words through different experiences and interactions,” he said. 

Proficiency is like a scale with different layers to it. Only after being fully immersed in Guatemala did Franco reach many Marian students’ goals of thinking and dreaming in another language. 

So if Marian’s required two years of language wasn’t your cup of tea, don’t call it quits just yet. Sometimes things just don’t click the first time around but there is always time for improvement.

Franco said, “Be patient with yourself. You’ve got to have courage to make a fool of yourself or put yourself in uncomfortable situations. You have to take a chance sometimes. The academics of it is important but you have to immerse yourself in it. Don’t be afraid to feel embarrassed because it’s gonna happen. You’re going to say things wrong or say something funny, it’s just part of the journey.”