My South American Chemistry Students

In my 30 years of teaching chemistry, I have never had one student who wanted me to explain course material in Spanish--except this summer term. Three students in my current biochemistry class are from my former mission area, Peru and Ecuador. They feel more comfortable conversing in Spanish, and one of them frequently comes to my office for Spanish explanations of what we've covered in class.

In fact, I just barely finished a 1½-hour biochemistry lecture/help session in Spanish with two of these Spanish-speaking students, Bertha and Lorena, both from Ecuador. We covered protein structure, calculation of net charge on peptides, determination of isoelectric point, interactions between biomolecules, and other subjects that will appear on the next exam. I think I learned as much Spanish as they did biochemistry.

I know these sessions are absolutely wonderful opportunities for me to push myself in Spanish and to become more comfortable in speaking Spanish in a wide variety of different situations.

What a great blessing I've received this school term as I prepare for my mission in Peru!

Started Language Training at the MTC

Today (Thursday, April 24) was my first day of language training at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. I live only 10 minutes away, so I met in person with my tutor, Rodrigo from Mexico City. (Senior missionaries who don't live near the MTC get tutoring via telephone.) Rodrigo is a returned missionary and a BYU student currently studying business, but he has the goal of getting into the BYU accounting program. He works part time teaching Spanish at the MTC.

We speak only Spanish during our lessons. Today we chatted for a few minutes to get to know each other, and then we started our lesson. He gave a spiritual thought and offered a prayer. Then we went over my goals and assignments, which include the following:

• Learn the five lessons. My homework assignment is to learn the first half of the first missionary lesson. As I understand it, he will present the lesson to me and then I will present it to him at our next class.
• Speak only Spanish. Our hymn, spiritual thought, prayer, and lesson are all in Spanish.
• Improve my Spanish vocabulary. We're doing a variety of activities to accomplish this goal, including assigned "tasks" (prepared lessons for a variety of different situations, such as interviews, introductions, and personal experiences), reading newspaper articles from Peru and other Spanish-speaking countries (which will force me to expand my vocabulary beyond the normal religious words), and studying the textbook on Spanish grammar.
• Improve my pronunciation. Rodrigo will help me with pronunciation when I have a problem, and will assign me "shadow listening tasks," which are written texts with an accompanying CD of native speakers' readings of the texts.

I gave the closing prayer and then asked another teacher to take our picture. We parted with a traditional "abrazo" (hug) and the normal exchange of pleasantries.

I couldn't have asked for a better tutor than Rodrigo. He's bright and friendly, speaks educated Spanish, has clear enunciation (even in casual conversation), has good experience in tutoring Spanish, and takes a spiritual approach to our lessons.

Our Pre-Mission Spanish Training at the MTC

We met yesterday (April 10, 2008) with the woman (Maria Johnson from the Dominican Republic) in charge of language training for couple missionaries at the Provo Missionary Training Center. Wow! Was I impressed. Here's the story:

1. The MTC has wonderful materials to help train couples before they enter the MTC for their missions: books, handouts, CDs (for listening to native Spanish speakers), and computer tutorials.
2. The MTC also has a one-on-one tutor program. My wife's tutor is Katie and mine is Rodrigo, neither of whom we have met yet. For couples who can't go to the MTC for face-to-face tutoring, the MTC has a telephone tutoring program.
3. Before we met with Maria, I assumed that only my wife, who doesn't speak Spanish, would take the classes with a tutor but that I wouldn't, because I speak Spanish already. Not so. I too get a tutor, who will help me review vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, but will also tutor me in Spanish conversation and gospel lessons.
4. We will meet with our tutors for one hour per week, stay another hour (usually) to do computer tutorials, and have homework of about two hours per day. I figure that by the time we are done, we will have had the equivalent of a 2-semester-hour college course in Spanish conversation.

I'm really excited about all this and am eager to improve my Spanish.

By the way, while we were at the MTC, we went to the travel office to get our visa pictures taken. At the MTC travel office, we had a great chat with a woman named Sharon, who was supervisor of our daughter Melissa when Melissa worked at the MTC while attending BYU. Sharon raved on and on about how competent and hard working Melissa was. In fact, after Melissa had worked there for a while, Sharon assigned Melissa to train all the new employees. It warmed our heart to hear someone else say wonderful things about our wonderful daughter.