ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

DIFFERENT PEDAGOGIC PERSPECTIVES IN TEACHINGSPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGEISABEL FERNÁNDEZIs it indispensable to learn grammar to be able to speak a languageproperly? After my nine months stay in Romania as a Spanish lector, and beingreally surprised by the effects of soap operas – telenovelas – over Romanianwomen, who are able to understand and speak Spanish because they are veryfond to this kind of TV programs, I show skeptical about the TraditionalMethodology of languages, leaving apart an old Spanish proverb that says: “laletra con sangre entra” 1 .I am going to make a reflection on the teaching of Spanish in three verydifferent contexts, born from my own experience on this field. With this ideas Iam trying to deep on the way the teacher should approach to the teaching of aforeign language, and what is the role that the grammar plays in this enterprise.In the United States, specifically in the college of the East of thecountry, in the State of Massachusetts, where I was working as a teachingassistant, it is normal to work in groups of ten people maximum in order toperfect the oral skill. Apart from the ordinary classes, in which the group isformed by thirty people, they are split up in three smaller groups for thisPractical class, and the Direct Methodology is followed on those. For this kindof activities, the grammar is left apart, and the way of teaching the secondlanguage is through imitative, associative and inductive learning. In order toachieve the objective of speaking all the time the foreign language, it isnecessary to have a native speaker teacher. Besides, no traslation must be doneon the lessons, and the target language is spoken during all the class. Even if thenative teacher spoke English pretty well, he would not use it by any means inclass; the student has to be able to get the message across using other strategies,but never translation. This methogology is followed within the sixth month oflearning of the second –or third- language. For every course, different techniquesare used; in the first year, due to a limited knowledge of the langue, stands suchas maps, comics, cartoons are used in class, and the student must point out theimages and explain the aim of the exercise. The teacher will always propose anaim for the activity, and the student must achieve the transference of themessage by using the strategies he knows. The objective ot these classes is, inthe first place, to be able to communicate the message to the recipient of thecomunicative act.1 This quotation means that we have to effort a lot to learn the subjects.ARHIVELE OLTENIEI, Serie nouă, nr. 21, 2007, p. 183–188