May 24, 2024 • 24 mins
The annual Wisconsin State Spanish Pronunciation Contest Championships is becoming a tradition in South Milwaukee. For those not familiar, it’s a contest where students study a bit of text, this year and last year it was a fragment of a poem, and practice pronouncing it exactly correctly.
Today on the podcast we’re going to hear from four students who participated and got a first or second place medal for their mastery of the poem. Then we’ll hear from Cheryl Caruso on three decades of teaching a global language – Spanish – and how during her career language education is taught and how students are different today than before.
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(00:00):
Welcome to the SMY Podcast.
(00:10):
I'm your host, Daniel B. The annual Wisconsin State Spanish Pronunciation Contest Championships
is becoming a tradition in South Milwaukee.
For those not familiar, it's a contest where students study a bit of text.
This year and last year, it was a fragment of a poem.
We practiced pronouncing it exactly correctly.
Today on the podcast, we're going to hear from students who participated, who got a
(00:34):
first or second place medal for their mastery of the poem.
Then we'll hear from Cheryl Caruso on three decades of teaching a global language, Spanish,
and how during her career language education is taught and how students are different today
than before.
But first, let's hear from our award-winning students and a recitation of the poem.
(00:58):
Fiesta en el mar, fragmento, Andrés Díaz Marrero.
Suenan caracolas, flautas de coral, tocan los tambores, pulpo y calamar.
Baila que te baila en suave compás.
Hay una estreita que brilla en el mar.
Celebration in the Sea, by Andrés Díaz Marrero.
(01:24):
Conchshell sound, flutes of coral.
They play the tambourines.
Octopus and squid.
They dance toward you in light rhythm.
There is a little star that shines in the sea.
What did you find challenging about memorizing or reading that poem for the contest?
(01:51):
I say the difficult part about it was pronouncing every words correctly and making sure you
say it properly and like the way you pronounce the ______ and stuff.
I find that a challenge.
Rebecca, how about you?
What did you feel about how did it go for you?
(02:11):
I feel like it went pretty well.
The only hard thing for me was memorizing all of the words because you had to recite
it from memory.
What made you want to even attempt to do this contest?
I really enjoyed Spanish class and I think that knowing a different language is really
cool so I thought it would be a cool thing to do.
(02:32):
When you actually had to get down into it, was it as challenging as you expected?
I would say yes just because you really had to pronounce everything correct and just learn
a different language and part of it.
Okay.
Sorry.
Kate?
(02:53):
Kate, tell me about the format.
How did you actually participate in the contest?
We would basically learn about the poem, the English meaning behind it and then reading
it in Spanish and we would then record it and submit it to the organization I guess
(03:13):
for us reading.
We would just read the poem in front of a Chromebook screen and submit it.
Did you get to do it more than once if you made a mistake?
Could you do it again?
Yes, definitely because I kind of messed up a few times.
I think we all messed up a few times and we basically all just did it a few times.
(03:35):
Read it so that it would be perfect basically.
Eric?
Eric, hi.
So tell me how many times did you record yourself doing it?
If I remember correctly at least a couple.
You got to try to get it as best as you can.
If you didn't get it the first time you might as well go a couple more times to see if you
(03:56):
can do the best.
What was the challenge for you in doing this poem?
Remembering what sounds certain letters make because it's definitely a lot harder than
English in my opinion because you grow up around that stuff but this definitely is something
new.
I imagine when you guys were doing this that it got stuck in your head.
Did you find yourself brushing your teeth thinking through the poem or you're nodding
(04:20):
yes.
I did.
I found myself sitting in my room just saying it sometimes because I would just be thinking.
When did you actually record the thing?
When was it?
Do you remember?
The poem.
Yeah, first week in March.
Do you remember any of it?
I remember the poem because we repeated it so much and every once in a while I'll just
(04:44):
start randomly saying it.
I'll just be hanging out with my soccer teammates or something and I'll just randomly say the
poem and they'll just start laughing at me or something like that and my teammates who
are fluent in Spanish would start saying hey good job you know Spanish.
So I think we should turn to Mr. Linden now and put him under the spotlight.
(05:07):
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for being here.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Tell me about the utility of a contest like this for students.
Well I think what really is a joy is the fact that really outstanding students such as the
four winners we have today got a chance to demonstrate their skills and all of their
(05:32):
hard work that they put forward in Spanish class each and every day for the quarter that
they were in Spanish.
I guess does having to study a bit of text like this and committed to memory change how
a student might learn Spanish?
Well I think it gives them a great deal of confidence especially that when they bring
(05:58):
home awards and are rewarded for the hard work that they put in I think it encourages
them to continue their Spanish studies and it gives them the confidence that they can
branch out and do other things as well across other subjects.
So this is the third year you've done it what have you learned going into your third
(06:20):
year in coaching students?
I think South Milwaukee students in general in the three years that I've had them put
forward a great deal of effort.
They dedicate themselves fully to doing the very best that they can and that's really
what it's all about.
We are all very proud of the effort that our students put forward for three years and this
(06:41):
is just another example of hard work paying off.
Joining us from her classroom at South Milwaukee High School is Cheryl Caruso.
As most students here know her as Senora Caruso.
Welcome to the SMI podcast.
Thank you so much.
So this is your last year in South Milwaukee.
(07:03):
Tell me how long have you taught?
How long have you taught here and how long have you taught in general?
And what got you into teaching teaching and then teaching Spanish language?
Well yes this is my 15th year here at South Milwaukee.
Prior to that I taught for 16 years in the Madison area in a high school called Monona
(07:23):
Grove High School which is right next to Madison.
And I did take a three year break from teaching to pursue other things and then realized that
I really wanted to be back in the classroom and so I was lucky enough to come here to
South Milwaukee.
So what got you into teaching in the first place and clearly you have a passion for it.
(07:46):
What sparked that passion?
I initially thought when I was going through my undergrad at UW Madison that I would not
be a teacher, a Spanish teacher or any teacher.
And as I went through my Latin American studies degree for my BA I was still pretty convinced
that that wasn't going to be my path and then eventually I did go on to do a masters in
(08:08):
Portuguese and then I came to realize that education really was interesting to me and
so I pursued my PhD in curriculum and instruction at Madison as well.
Along the way having had a little bit of experience teaching at the university level I realized
that after attending a day with a colleague from grad school who was teaching high school
(08:33):
Spanish that I had kind of a soft spot in my heart for the high school level and so
as a result I found myself teaching high school Spanish.
What sparked your interest in language, learning language in the first place?
I love to learn and I love learning new languages.
(08:55):
I also speak Portuguese and I'm working on my Italian and so I guess I really wanted
to share that passion with students and I really wanted to have them have a great experience
with language because for me language is so important as part of who I am and wanted to
(09:19):
at the very least have them have a great experience with their language studies and possibly see
that light in their eyes when they realize that they love the language too.
Was there any one memory or one moment when you kind of decided that language was going
(09:40):
to be your forte and that it's something you wanted to spend your life learning about?
I would say that I would give credit to my high school Spanish teacher for that.
She inspired a lot of curiosity about the language and learning the language and when
she decided to take a busload full of Oregon high school, Oregon Wisconsin Spanish students
(10:05):
to Mexico on a bus, I really the very first moment that we got to Mexico and I just saw
this landscape very different from Wisconsin and I heard these beautiful words coming out
of people's mouths.
That was the moment.
That's when I knew that this was going to be a part of my life forever.
Do you remember her name?
(10:26):
Sharon Chamberlain.
Did you stay in touch with her after high school?
As a matter of fact I did stay in touch.
She went on to do other things in the business world after her career ended.
I don't know when she stopped teaching but I know she was at it for a good long time.
She was very very happy to find out that I had followed in her footsteps.
(10:54):
At this point in your career you have seen generations of students come through, many
of whom may even have students now in your classroom.
Think back to when you started in South Milwaukee, what were students like and what was studying
(11:17):
Spanish a cerebral enterprise and has it become more of a practical tool?
What are your thoughts on that in general?
How have students come to take an interest in the language?
I would say that it has a lot to do with our global society.
(11:42):
Back when I first started teaching, which was a long time ago, I think that we did not
have the connections both informal and formal to the rest of the world.
How we studied the language was based much more on book study, memorizing dialogues and
(12:04):
things of that nature.
Always moving towards the hands on, give the building blocks to create your own words and
utterances in the language and applying that to real world situations.
I think that is what we strive to do these days in foreign language education.
(12:29):
I don't want to miss out.
You said your seminal moment was that trip, right?
We give that experience here.
You don't personally, I don't think, do that.
So I guess my question is, as a language department, what big experiences do we give our students
(12:51):
even if it is not particularly in your classroom?
Right.
So there are field trips, just an example of things that we do and have done in the
past to bilingual schools in the Milwaukee area.
And particularly, I believe it is Escuela Viu is the name of the school.
(13:12):
And students will go and have an experience in a bilingual classroom with elementary students
and interact with them, maybe bring some activities for them to do.
That's one.
The travel is the thing that the travel abroad is a huge part of those experiences because
the, and this is the part that is a little hard to explain to a student unless they have
(13:40):
actually had the experience.
And I will say that the Costa Rica trip that occurred over spring break, when I talked
to the students that came back, it was a life changing experience for them.
And they will tell you that.
And it just shows that that was the case.
So those would just be two examples.
Great.
Thank you.
(14:02):
And how about the students?
How have they changed?
Are students the same now as when you started?
I would say that I notice now that students have a lot more needs in the social emotional
realm.
That has become evident to me as I have progressed in my career.
And I feel like it's up to me as the person in the room with them to really be sensitive
(14:30):
to that and really assist in my role as much as possible to help them negotiate this time
in their life.
A couple years ago now I spoke to a grad whose mother is Colombian.
She grew up speaking Spanish.
But she told me that she took Spanish to have a formal education in it to learn grammar.
(14:56):
Are you finding that more and more now?
I would say that many students that I come across, I teach the Spanish 1 and Spanish
2.
I have a lot of freshmen and sophomores and I have students who have some experience with
Spanish outside of the classroom, be it family or in other contexts.
(15:21):
And so I do find that they have come here to kind of get that nice foundation in their
language so that they might be able to express themselves a little bit more in the language.
For years I was the editor of a bilingual newspaper in Manhattan.
It was in a Dominican neighborhood.
(15:45):
I had passable Spanish out of college, but I could not write, obviously, in Spanish,
not to a journalistic level.
And not only did it go through a translator, it was then looked at again by a scholar to
then edit it again to make sure the grammar and punctuation was right.
So I get that idea that some of the formality of it, something that native English speakers
(16:10):
get from day one in kindergarten, that you're trying to pack into a high school career.
How much do you get to go into that?
I would say that one of the most important things for language learning is to hear as
much as possible in the target language, otherwise known as comprehensible input.
(16:36):
And so the more we can bring to our students as world language teachers in terms of hearing
everything from the daily routine, please get out your Chromebooks, please get out your
textbook, open to this page.
Just the very basics, obviously, in the target language and everything all the way to maybe
(16:59):
discussing a story in very rudimentary terms at that level, the lower levels.
But always trying to have the language learners become more autonomous and claim the language
for their own.
Yeah, I mean, so we heard from students at the beginning of the podcast really focusing
(17:22):
on their articulation and pronunciation and succeeded because they were contest winners.
I'm wondering, in your experience, if someone took full advantage of the Spanish language
program here all the way through graduation, do you think they could come out and speak
Spanish to a native speaker out on the street?
(17:45):
I think they would have, I think it really depends on the person, the student, you know,
but if they did take, as you say, the full advantage, I think they would come out with
some really amazing language skills.
Yeah.
And I guess, is it a foundation then to maybe pursue it further in college?
(18:06):
Is that the intention?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I think one of the things we want to instill in our language students is that
desire to continue perfecting the language, deepening your understanding of it, and thus
your ability to produce it in authentic situations.
You'd mentioned Chromebooks and it just occurred to me that maybe technology maybe has come
(18:28):
into play when it comes to language learning.
How has it?
Oh, absolutely.
I can remember in my early days standing up in front of the class with a set of paper
flashcards with the Spanish on one side and the English on the other, right, and just
going through the flashcards with the whole class, right, and then having them hopefully
(18:50):
make their own flashcard sets and do it on their own to prepare for what we would do
in class.
And now, of course, there are so many different digital platforms that Quizlet, for example,
where you're basically doing the same thing except it's digital, and I think that it's
(19:10):
so helpful to students because it's sort of their language, if you will.
So they are so familiar with that that that's the way to access that vocab.
Does technology ever get in the way?
I imagine a Google Translate or taking a course in Duolingo might not exactly follow the path
(19:34):
that you were laying out for students.
Oh, absolutely.
Google Translate is the nemesis because we obviously want to know what students can do,
not what Google Translate can do, right?
And we really are very clear with our students that Google Translate will not enter into
(19:56):
this dance that we're doing in learning the language.
And it's interesting because, of course, you will have those who don't believe you that
you will be able to tell.
But when they're writing at a graduate school level in Spanish 1, it's kind of a tell.
(20:16):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I imagine that school-wide is a struggle now with AI and those kind of things as a
way to either, if you're in a rush to get an assignment done or just outright cheat,
you know, is something you're all struggling with.
Yes, I would agree with that.
(20:37):
And that's actually another skill we want to teach students is time and place for things
and the value of, I guess I want to say, it's helping them get confident in their own abilities
to express themselves and that their ideas are really good and they need to express them.
(21:00):
And then if we could talk, I know that you teach more than just comprehension and language.
A lot of this is about culture.
Talk about the student experience and how that comes into play and the value of that
in a rounded high school education.
(21:20):
Let's see.
That's a big question.
That's a big question.
Yeah, I'm just thinking about understanding otherness, right, or understanding a culture
that is maybe not your own or maybe you're a peer but not yours and that this kind of
(21:42):
might lead to some understanding.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
I've had a poster.
It's down now because I'm retiring, but it's the one thing that I always believed in from
the start and I had it in my old classroom in a different school, but it had a lovely
picture on it of some penguins actually and it said, understand the similarities and celebrate
(22:09):
the differences.
And I think that's what I have always tried to do in my role as a teacher of languages
is say there's so many things that we share that are the same for people around the world,
but how you accomplish those things may be different.
You may eat your main meal at noon rather than for supper and you're still eating, but
(22:34):
it's just how it occurs and to really appreciate the fact that there's more than one way to
do things in the world.
So you are retiring.
What are you going to miss about Spanish language education?
I am going to miss several things.
I am going to miss that moment where you can see it in their eyes and you can see it come
(23:01):
across them that they get it, that they get whatever it is you're working on at the moment
or that it goes beyond that.
Like I said before that you just kind of see that they have fallen in love with the language
and that's not the case for all students of course, but when that happens it's a pretty
cool thing.
The other thing I'm going to miss is, and I was telling this to my Spanish too the other
(23:26):
day, it has quite a few sophomores in it, and I just said I'm going to miss seeing you
guys as you walk through your career as a high school student because at the end you're
so very different than when you were a freshman, when you started, and I'm going to miss seeing
the evolution of you as a person becoming even cooler than you are now.
(23:52):
That's great.
Thank you for that.
Congratulations on your retirement.
Thank you for your time here at South Milwaukee.
You're going to be missed and I'm sure students will miss you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Gracias.
Thanks for listening to today's podcast episode.
We want to wish Senora Caruso and all our retirees best wishes in the next stage of
(24:15):
their lives.
We are poorer without you but excited for you.
This is the last regularly scheduled episode of the school year, but we'll be back in
the summer with stories from summer school, a celebration of the Performing Arts Center's
20th anniversary celebration year, and more.
Stay tuned.
Welcome to the SMY Podcast.
(00:10):
I'm your host, Daniel B. The annual Wisconsin State Spanish Pronunciation Contest Championships
is becoming a tradition in South Milwaukee.
For those not familiar, it's a contest where students study a bit of text.
This year and last year, it was a fragment of a poem.
We practiced pronouncing it exactly correctly.
Today on the podcast, we're going to hear from students who participated, who got a
(00:34):
first or second place medal for their mastery of the poem.
Then we'll hear from Cheryl Caruso on three decades of teaching a global language, Spanish,
and how during her career language education is taught and how students are different today
than before.
But first, let's hear from our award-winning students and a recitation of the poem.
(00:58):
Fiesta en el mar, fragmento, Andrés Díaz Marrero.
Suenan caracolas, flautas de coral, tocan los tambores, pulpo y calamar.
Baila que te baila en suave compás.
Hay una estreita que brilla en el mar.
Celebration in the Sea, by Andrés Díaz Marrero.
(01:24):
Conchshell sound, flutes of coral.
They play the tambourines.
Octopus and squid.
They dance toward you in light rhythm.
There is a little star that shines in the sea.
What did you find challenging about memorizing or reading that poem for the contest?
(01:51):
I say the difficult part about it was pronouncing every words correctly and making sure you
say it properly and like the way you pronounce the ______ and stuff.
I find that a challenge.
Rebecca, how about you?
What did you feel about how did it go for you?
(02:11):
I feel like it went pretty well.
The only hard thing for me was memorizing all of the words because you had to recite
it from memory.
What made you want to even attempt to do this contest?
I really enjoyed Spanish class and I think that knowing a different language is really
cool so I thought it would be a cool thing to do.
(02:32):
When you actually had to get down into it, was it as challenging as you expected?
I would say yes just because you really had to pronounce everything correct and just learn
a different language and part of it.
Okay.
Sorry.
Kate?
(02:53):
Kate, tell me about the format.
How did you actually participate in the contest?
We would basically learn about the poem, the English meaning behind it and then reading
it in Spanish and we would then record it and submit it to the organization I guess
(03:13):
for us reading.
We would just read the poem in front of a Chromebook screen and submit it.
Did you get to do it more than once if you made a mistake?
Could you do it again?
Yes, definitely because I kind of messed up a few times.
I think we all messed up a few times and we basically all just did it a few times.
(03:35):
Read it so that it would be perfect basically.
Eric?
Eric, hi.
So tell me how many times did you record yourself doing it?
If I remember correctly at least a couple.
You got to try to get it as best as you can.
If you didn't get it the first time you might as well go a couple more times to see if you
(03:56):
can do the best.
What was the challenge for you in doing this poem?
Remembering what sounds certain letters make because it's definitely a lot harder than
English in my opinion because you grow up around that stuff but this definitely is something
new.
I imagine when you guys were doing this that it got stuck in your head.
Did you find yourself brushing your teeth thinking through the poem or you're nodding
(04:20):
yes.
I did.
I found myself sitting in my room just saying it sometimes because I would just be thinking.
When did you actually record the thing?
When was it?
Do you remember?
The poem.
Yeah, first week in March.
Do you remember any of it?
I remember the poem because we repeated it so much and every once in a while I'll just
(04:44):
start randomly saying it.
I'll just be hanging out with my soccer teammates or something and I'll just randomly say the
poem and they'll just start laughing at me or something like that and my teammates who
are fluent in Spanish would start saying hey good job you know Spanish.
So I think we should turn to Mr. Linden now and put him under the spotlight.
(05:07):
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for being here.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Tell me about the utility of a contest like this for students.
Well I think what really is a joy is the fact that really outstanding students such as the
four winners we have today got a chance to demonstrate their skills and all of their
(05:32):
hard work that they put forward in Spanish class each and every day for the quarter that
they were in Spanish.
I guess does having to study a bit of text like this and committed to memory change how
a student might learn Spanish?
Well I think it gives them a great deal of confidence especially that when they bring
(05:58):
home awards and are rewarded for the hard work that they put in I think it encourages
them to continue their Spanish studies and it gives them the confidence that they can
branch out and do other things as well across other subjects.
So this is the third year you've done it what have you learned going into your third
(06:20):
year in coaching students?
I think South Milwaukee students in general in the three years that I've had them put
forward a great deal of effort.
They dedicate themselves fully to doing the very best that they can and that's really
what it's all about.
We are all very proud of the effort that our students put forward for three years and this
(06:41):
is just another example of hard work paying off.
Joining us from her classroom at South Milwaukee High School is Cheryl Caruso.
As most students here know her as Senora Caruso.
Welcome to the SMI podcast.
Thank you so much.
So this is your last year in South Milwaukee.
(07:03):
Tell me how long have you taught?
How long have you taught here and how long have you taught in general?
And what got you into teaching teaching and then teaching Spanish language?
Well yes this is my 15th year here at South Milwaukee.
Prior to that I taught for 16 years in the Madison area in a high school called Monona
(07:23):
Grove High School which is right next to Madison.
And I did take a three year break from teaching to pursue other things and then realized that
I really wanted to be back in the classroom and so I was lucky enough to come here to
South Milwaukee.
So what got you into teaching in the first place and clearly you have a passion for it.
(07:46):
What sparked that passion?
I initially thought when I was going through my undergrad at UW Madison that I would not
be a teacher, a Spanish teacher or any teacher.
And as I went through my Latin American studies degree for my BA I was still pretty convinced
that that wasn't going to be my path and then eventually I did go on to do a masters in
(08:08):
Portuguese and then I came to realize that education really was interesting to me and
so I pursued my PhD in curriculum and instruction at Madison as well.
Along the way having had a little bit of experience teaching at the university level I realized
that after attending a day with a colleague from grad school who was teaching high school
(08:33):
Spanish that I had kind of a soft spot in my heart for the high school level and so
as a result I found myself teaching high school Spanish.
What sparked your interest in language, learning language in the first place?
I love to learn and I love learning new languages.
(08:55):
I also speak Portuguese and I'm working on my Italian and so I guess I really wanted
to share that passion with students and I really wanted to have them have a great experience
with language because for me language is so important as part of who I am and wanted to
(09:19):
at the very least have them have a great experience with their language studies and possibly see
that light in their eyes when they realize that they love the language too.
Was there any one memory or one moment when you kind of decided that language was going
(09:40):
to be your forte and that it's something you wanted to spend your life learning about?
I would say that I would give credit to my high school Spanish teacher for that.
She inspired a lot of curiosity about the language and learning the language and when
she decided to take a busload full of Oregon high school, Oregon Wisconsin Spanish students
(10:05):
to Mexico on a bus, I really the very first moment that we got to Mexico and I just saw
this landscape very different from Wisconsin and I heard these beautiful words coming out
of people's mouths.
That was the moment.
That's when I knew that this was going to be a part of my life forever.
Do you remember her name?
(10:26):
Sharon Chamberlain.
Did you stay in touch with her after high school?
As a matter of fact I did stay in touch.
She went on to do other things in the business world after her career ended.
I don't know when she stopped teaching but I know she was at it for a good long time.
She was very very happy to find out that I had followed in her footsteps.
(10:54):
At this point in your career you have seen generations of students come through, many
of whom may even have students now in your classroom.
Think back to when you started in South Milwaukee, what were students like and what was studying
(11:17):
Spanish a cerebral enterprise and has it become more of a practical tool?
What are your thoughts on that in general?
How have students come to take an interest in the language?
I would say that it has a lot to do with our global society.
(11:42):
Back when I first started teaching, which was a long time ago, I think that we did not
have the connections both informal and formal to the rest of the world.
How we studied the language was based much more on book study, memorizing dialogues and
(12:04):
things of that nature.
Always moving towards the hands on, give the building blocks to create your own words and
utterances in the language and applying that to real world situations.
I think that is what we strive to do these days in foreign language education.
(12:29):
I don't want to miss out.
You said your seminal moment was that trip, right?
We give that experience here.
You don't personally, I don't think, do that.
So I guess my question is, as a language department, what big experiences do we give our students
(12:51):
even if it is not particularly in your classroom?
Right.
So there are field trips, just an example of things that we do and have done in the
past to bilingual schools in the Milwaukee area.
And particularly, I believe it is Escuela Viu is the name of the school.
(13:12):
And students will go and have an experience in a bilingual classroom with elementary students
and interact with them, maybe bring some activities for them to do.
That's one.
The travel is the thing that the travel abroad is a huge part of those experiences because
the, and this is the part that is a little hard to explain to a student unless they have
(13:40):
actually had the experience.
And I will say that the Costa Rica trip that occurred over spring break, when I talked
to the students that came back, it was a life changing experience for them.
And they will tell you that.
And it just shows that that was the case.
So those would just be two examples.
Great.
Thank you.
(14:02):
And how about the students?
How have they changed?
Are students the same now as when you started?
I would say that I notice now that students have a lot more needs in the social emotional
realm.
That has become evident to me as I have progressed in my career.
And I feel like it's up to me as the person in the room with them to really be sensitive
(14:30):
to that and really assist in my role as much as possible to help them negotiate this time
in their life.
A couple years ago now I spoke to a grad whose mother is Colombian.
She grew up speaking Spanish.
But she told me that she took Spanish to have a formal education in it to learn grammar.
(14:56):
Are you finding that more and more now?
I would say that many students that I come across, I teach the Spanish 1 and Spanish
2.
I have a lot of freshmen and sophomores and I have students who have some experience with
Spanish outside of the classroom, be it family or in other contexts.
(15:21):
And so I do find that they have come here to kind of get that nice foundation in their
language so that they might be able to express themselves a little bit more in the language.
For years I was the editor of a bilingual newspaper in Manhattan.
It was in a Dominican neighborhood.
(15:45):
I had passable Spanish out of college, but I could not write, obviously, in Spanish,
not to a journalistic level.
And not only did it go through a translator, it was then looked at again by a scholar to
then edit it again to make sure the grammar and punctuation was right.
So I get that idea that some of the formality of it, something that native English speakers
(16:10):
get from day one in kindergarten, that you're trying to pack into a high school career.
How much do you get to go into that?
I would say that one of the most important things for language learning is to hear as
much as possible in the target language, otherwise known as comprehensible input.
(16:36):
And so the more we can bring to our students as world language teachers in terms of hearing
everything from the daily routine, please get out your Chromebooks, please get out your
textbook, open to this page.
Just the very basics, obviously, in the target language and everything all the way to maybe
(16:59):
discussing a story in very rudimentary terms at that level, the lower levels.
But always trying to have the language learners become more autonomous and claim the language
for their own.
Yeah, I mean, so we heard from students at the beginning of the podcast really focusing
(17:22):
on their articulation and pronunciation and succeeded because they were contest winners.
I'm wondering, in your experience, if someone took full advantage of the Spanish language
program here all the way through graduation, do you think they could come out and speak
Spanish to a native speaker out on the street?
(17:45):
I think they would have, I think it really depends on the person, the student, you know,
but if they did take, as you say, the full advantage, I think they would come out with
some really amazing language skills.
Yeah.
And I guess, is it a foundation then to maybe pursue it further in college?
(18:06):
Is that the intention?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I think one of the things we want to instill in our language students is that
desire to continue perfecting the language, deepening your understanding of it, and thus
your ability to produce it in authentic situations.
You'd mentioned Chromebooks and it just occurred to me that maybe technology maybe has come
(18:28):
into play when it comes to language learning.
How has it?
Oh, absolutely.
I can remember in my early days standing up in front of the class with a set of paper
flashcards with the Spanish on one side and the English on the other, right, and just
going through the flashcards with the whole class, right, and then having them hopefully
(18:50):
make their own flashcard sets and do it on their own to prepare for what we would do
in class.
And now, of course, there are so many different digital platforms that Quizlet, for example,
where you're basically doing the same thing except it's digital, and I think that it's
(19:10):
so helpful to students because it's sort of their language, if you will.
So they are so familiar with that that that's the way to access that vocab.
Does technology ever get in the way?
I imagine a Google Translate or taking a course in Duolingo might not exactly follow the path
(19:34):
that you were laying out for students.
Oh, absolutely.
Google Translate is the nemesis because we obviously want to know what students can do,
not what Google Translate can do, right?
And we really are very clear with our students that Google Translate will not enter into
(19:56):
this dance that we're doing in learning the language.
And it's interesting because, of course, you will have those who don't believe you that
you will be able to tell.
But when they're writing at a graduate school level in Spanish 1, it's kind of a tell.
(20:16):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I imagine that school-wide is a struggle now with AI and those kind of things as a
way to either, if you're in a rush to get an assignment done or just outright cheat,
you know, is something you're all struggling with.
Yes, I would agree with that.
(20:37):
And that's actually another skill we want to teach students is time and place for things
and the value of, I guess I want to say, it's helping them get confident in their own abilities
to express themselves and that their ideas are really good and they need to express them.
(21:00):
And then if we could talk, I know that you teach more than just comprehension and language.
A lot of this is about culture.
Talk about the student experience and how that comes into play and the value of that
in a rounded high school education.
(21:20):
Let's see.
That's a big question.
That's a big question.
Yeah, I'm just thinking about understanding otherness, right, or understanding a culture
that is maybe not your own or maybe you're a peer but not yours and that this kind of
(21:42):
might lead to some understanding.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
I've had a poster.
It's down now because I'm retiring, but it's the one thing that I always believed in from
the start and I had it in my old classroom in a different school, but it had a lovely
picture on it of some penguins actually and it said, understand the similarities and celebrate
(22:09):
the differences.
And I think that's what I have always tried to do in my role as a teacher of languages
is say there's so many things that we share that are the same for people around the world,
but how you accomplish those things may be different.
You may eat your main meal at noon rather than for supper and you're still eating, but
(22:34):
it's just how it occurs and to really appreciate the fact that there's more than one way to
do things in the world.
So you are retiring.
What are you going to miss about Spanish language education?
I am going to miss several things.
I am going to miss that moment where you can see it in their eyes and you can see it come
(23:01):
across them that they get it, that they get whatever it is you're working on at the moment
or that it goes beyond that.
Like I said before that you just kind of see that they have fallen in love with the language
and that's not the case for all students of course, but when that happens it's a pretty
cool thing.
The other thing I'm going to miss is, and I was telling this to my Spanish too the other
(23:26):
day, it has quite a few sophomores in it, and I just said I'm going to miss seeing you
guys as you walk through your career as a high school student because at the end you're
so very different than when you were a freshman, when you started, and I'm going to miss seeing
the evolution of you as a person becoming even cooler than you are now.
(23:52):
That's great.
Thank you for that.
Congratulations on your retirement.
Thank you for your time here at South Milwaukee.
You're going to be missed and I'm sure students will miss you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Gracias.
Thanks for listening to today's podcast episode.
We want to wish Senora Caruso and all our retirees best wishes in the next stage of
(24:15):
their lives.
We are poorer without you but excited for you.
This is the last regularly scheduled episode of the school year, but we'll be back in
the summer with stories from summer school, a celebration of the Performing Arts Center's
20th anniversary celebration year, and more.
Stay tuned.
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