Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Why? Why, why, why, why?

I’m the only American Fulbright teacher in the Moroccan program that doesn’t speak French. The Moroccan teachers speak at least three languages. Raise your hand if you think that occasionally Angie feels a little bit foolish. (Insert me raising my hand here.)

I need to learn another language! Every time I travel I think that. One of the biggest regrets of my life so far is that I only speak English. I took two years of Spanish in high school. . I was really successful at first, but then I didn’t understand. I stopped. I only wanted the credits so I could get into college. What a lame reason! Getting into college was important, but what about the greater reason? What about being a citizen of the world? What about being able to communicate with people across the world?

What was I thinking? Sheesh.

I’ve done a little better this year as I’ve been working to learn Inupiaq. I need to do even more.

Hey all you kids out there! Don’t be like me! Learn another language!

5 comments:

cphurner said...

I'm going to tell all my students too. See, it is important to learn French! Hope all's well for you there and I hope to see you soon.

Missy said...

I feel the same way. Nearly everyone in Finland speaks Swedish and English, and many others take additional languages as well (usually Russian, French or German). And I speak... English.

Dorese @ Dorese's Pieces said...

I know! My problem has been (in addition to not taking the language {{French}} seriously) I also chose one I wouldn't have used very much in the U.S. So I was kicking myself when we moved to SE Idaho and one in 3 people in my community does not speak English well... so I started to take Spanish classes now in college. It's never ending, and it's hard stuff once you start to just "not get it", ya know?

LuvNmyAO said...

okay ANGIE! i know more Cherokee, and greman and Spanish and other lanuages!!! Starting to learn yiddidsh Polish and trying Arabic... you want to email back and forth?:)

theriddle said...

I'm a German teacher and I KNOW most of my students are just taking the two years to get into school. I keep trying to think of ways to inspire them not to give up on language.