I am a Spanish Language teacher and I have students who are from Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina and many different Spanish-speaking countries. I find the diversity in the Spanish-speaking community to be truly fascinating. We Spanish speakers are not all alike, as popular media often portray us. Because I am teaching language, I use the diversity of Spanish to highlight the diversity of our community.
Linguistic discrimination is a growing trend in my school. Students from diverse backgrounds get together in class and use their home language, often associating only with fellow students who speak the same kind of English or Spanish they speak. Here’s how I fight this kind of self-segregation.
First I show some photographs to students to get the discussion going. For example, I show photographs of corn, peanuts, and other common items. I ask students to write down the word they use for that item. Next I break students into groups based on the English name of the object they are naming (a corn group, a peanut group, and so on). Then students see how many different Spanish names they had for this one single object. Students are asked to identify which term they think is the best one to name the object and they must give the rationale behind their thoughts.
After this initial activity, I give students a handout with terms in English divided into two columns. They have to match the items in column A (the common terms they most likely know) with the items in column B (the same items named differently in places like the United Kingdom and Canada). This is the handout I use:
REGIONALISMS
Draw a line from the regionalisms in column A to the corresponding words in column B.
A B
Line Lorry
Elevator Underground
Subway Queue
Truck Lift
(You can deepen the list by adding English word pairs that are associated with different regions within the United States, such as Bag/Sack, Buggy/Cart or Soda/Pop.)
When students are done, we go over the information and we have a lively discussion about the different names for these common items. Next, I ask them to do the same thing with terms in Spanish. This is the handout I use:
REGIONALISMOS
Ahora haz lo mismo, pero con los siguientes comestibles en español.
A B
Judias verdes Elote, Choclo
Jugo de naranja Mani, cacahuates
Cacahuetes papas
Maiz Jugo de china, zumo de nar
Patatas habichuelas tiernas, vainitas, Ejotes, porotos
After the students are done, we all do the activity together on the board and have another lively discussion about how we say things in our different countries of origin. I also have students transfer their work onto posters with visuals so that they have cues for their vocabulary words. This is a fantastic way to begin discussions in a language class about the diversity of a seemingly homogeneous group.
Sergio Lopez Alarcón
Beverly Hills High School
Los Angeles, Calif.
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