Cross Cultural Communication

As Fray Luis de León once said: “as we were saying yesterday”… A few weeks ago, I finished my post with: “Today I’m at the bookshop, and I don’t see any popular new methods. Everything I do see however contains something interesting, and that tells me that ours is a multi-dimensional profession, one that ranges from the emotional to the coldest of intellectual sciences. We hit on a little of everything, and luckily for us, we don’t get hit back too hard!”

Interculturality

I hit on a little of everything, but I don’t do it all at the same time. I organize myself and I usually only touch on one or two things at once, and here I’m going to discuss “interculturality”, or cross-cultural communication for cognitive speech development and for effective grammar teaching (or something like that). In other words, that’s where I’ll get started, letting myself get worked up about it and launching into the subject with the first person who, by a nervous and generous tic slightly raises one eyebrow, unconsciously displaying the most subtle of gestures that indicates interest in my words. It really doesn’t matter that my listener’s level of interest will soon be pulverized by my ability to bore to death, I’m still fascinated. I’m likely already losing readers, and if I keep this up, I’ll have no volunteers left to hear my winded discourse.

Interculturality is not so much a topic related to teaching, as it is a matter of chauvinist obstinacy. I just think that somehow the need to defend the image many have of Spaniards has fallen on my shoulders, although I must confess that sometimes I think I unconsciously want to convince the folks that run the financial markets more than the students. I think of myself as a champion of patriotic honor as I organize cultural activities designed to help students value Spanish traditions, single handedly saving Spain’s tourist appeal, which will pull the country out of the economic crisis and create six million jobs in the process. And all this because I’m going to make the Spanish lack of punctuality be seen as a mere mode of conceiving time elastically to allow friends to relax a bit, something they need to do in these stressful times. My husband says that nobody’s going to buy that, but it all seems quite clear to me. As soon as the financial markets understand that Spaniards work more hours than anyone else in Europe and that we effectively raise the rate of happiness with our concept of flexible time, the warmth of our relationships and the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, then they’ll start really investing in this country, a place where vegetarians can eat jamón, because a great tapa transcends any notion of what’s right and wrong. At times, I feel like I’m the queen of excess, but the sin of excess is really not that bad, the sin of defect is worse, and the truth is I really don’t have many defects, alright I may be a little bit passionate, but as far as defects go, like real defects, I’m, not very guilty.

Living in times of crisis

When I think about it seriously, what’s really behind this recent obsession is a sharp little pain that’s been cutting from my heart to my liver and then back to my heart after it’s been loaded with bile. Living in times of crisis is painful, especially when you hear with your own ears how the excited praise that students lavished on Spaniards just a few years ago has suddenly turned into scathing criticism, at times plain contempt. Just as the enthusiastic admiration often seemed like hasty conclusions made from a knowledge of Spanish culture that was based more on stereotypes and wild fiestas drenched in Spanish wine than it was on reality and personal experience, today’s negative criticism including generalized notions that Spaniards don’t work hard, are lacking in discipline, and that the country lacks fiscal and political honesty, also seem inspired by prejudices, this time created by the media for unclear reasons. So I think that Spaniards may have a universal destiny that we’ve been unaware of: to serve as an example for the world. In these times of uncontrolled consumerism, we’re a model for joyful living, and a scape goat chosen by economic analysts to represent everything they don’t know how to explain.  So it seems that what we Spaniards have to offer is that we’re good for everything, “valemos pa’ to’” in other words, we can be used for that which is broken and for that which has come unraveled.