Travel and Adventures--Companions Over Time

For April 8, 2010
My fourth grade teacher had just returned from Spain and taught us Spanish while we learned the other fourth grade subjects.  I learned some French in a language-learning program offered at the university my mother attended for graduate school the next summer.  By the time I was ten I spoke a bit of both Spanish and French and began a life-long love of communicating in multiple languages.

In the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, because I had just completed two years of high school Spanish, I was invited to visit Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic as part of President John F. Kennedy's "Sister City" program.   This was my first opportunity to put into practice what I had learned in Spanish class.

That first taste of travel began another life-long love of travel.  Along with the travel came the adventures.  I haven't often written about those adventures and it seems to be a good idea to get started.

Language Exams Preparation and Public Libraries

I am preparing for a comprehensive examination in Spanish that I expect to be taking in a few days.  While I am bilingual and have studied Spanish for six years, it has been a long time since I reviewed Spanish grammar and irregular verbs.  These days I normally relax into Spanish and engage in conversations.

Today I went to the St Charles Public Library and checked-out several review books and CDs for Spanish language.  I also picked-up two novels in Spanish, one in an audio book and a companion book--both unabridged and another in both Spanish and English.  Because I will need to be translating English into Spanish, part of my preparation will be to listen to an unabridged audio book in English and to read it in Spanish at the same time.

Fortunately for me, the public library had all of these resources.  I am also watching DVD movies in Spanish--and sometimes in English--and am taking advantage of the Spanish language learning program I have subscribed to online.

While I do not know what will be on the battery of tests in Spanish I will be facing soon, my immersion in the language and its grammar will undoubtedly help me do better than not taking the time to become immersed in the language.

Second Language Learning--English, French, Italian, Spanish, More

Today I was asked how fluent I am in French.  It is my least used language at the moment.  I did study French for five years and was fluent in it in 1969 when I entered the U.S. Army.  I have used French in a limited way since then and could bring it back to fluency with a bit of study.

English is my native (first) language.  I am currently most fluent in Spanish, then comes Italian (I lived in Italy for 3.5 years) and, finally (for now) French.  It is amazing how much learning multiple languages helps in focusing the learning in all of the languages.  The real key is immersion--actually speaking the language in normal day-to-day activities.  One way to identify emerging fluency is when we are aware of dreaming in a second language.  Second language learning (SLL) is the term used for all languages after acquiring the first language. 

For me, most of my second languages have a Latin base.  That's helpful.  I'm very happy to have English as my first language--it's incredibly difficult to learn as a second language.  I enjoy language learning and am now certified as a Teacher of English as a Second Language in Illinois.  I had lots of hours in English in college and what I needed to learn to teach English as a second language is very different from the coursework I took in English while at the university.

How fluent am I in French?  I can probably get around in a taxi in France and I can be lots better with a brief refresher course in the language.  I'm exploring an opportunity to brush up on several languages.  I'll revisit this post with the links once I have them.

What I do best---Reprise

Throughout this blog, I have mentioned what I do best in several posts.  Today I've been thinking about that.

What do I do best?  I make a positive difference in the world by helping people and organizations learn to  change to improve their quality of (business) life now and for the future.

I've been doing that since I began working 40+ years ago.

I do the work wherever I am in whatever job I take on--independently or for others.  It is an essential part of who I am and, over time, I have come to recognize it--as do the people who know me and who work with me.

I am very good at assimilating what is going on in context and channeling that context in ways that follow research-based best practices to come up with what needs to be learned to change to produce the improvements.  The good news for me is that I have learned to do that with children, adults, and organizations.  I've also learned to do it across cultures and languages.

In the course of doing what I do best, I have worked with people in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.  That's good because I enjoy meeting new people and cultures and practicing new languages.  I've provided these services in English, Spanish, Italian, and French and have picked-up some conversational fluency in other languages along the way if I've stayed in the country long enough.

I've worked for the federal government in the USA and Canada, public and private businesses, colleges and universities, K-12 school districts, and have owned my own businesses along the way.  I've worked with more than 100 organizations and more than 16 different industries and with thousands of people--children and adults.

I've grown and learned quite a bit along the way and enjoy sharing what I have learned and continue to learn with the people I work with day to day.

My challenge now is to tell this story in a multimedia format--probably starting with MicrosoftPowerPoint and moving on from there.  If you want to help, please let me know.