WANDERINGS OF A TEACHER OF ENGLISH

My real steps toward becoming a teacher of English.

by Carlos Rafael Domnguez

-IPILLOW Pillow. Believe it or not, this is the first English word I learnt, and the only one I kept on my mind for perhaps almost a decade. True! Its a real story! It runs as follows: It was 1938. After my mothers death I, a boy nine years old, was living in Buenos Aires with my maternal grandparents, three aunts and my two sisters. Of course, no foreign language was taught at official primary schools then. One of my aunts was working as an attendant at Gath & Chaves, a very important department store in the city. The firm, precisely in that year invited their employees to take a free afterhours English course My aunt decided to attend it enthusiastically. By chance one the the first words she came across in one of the lessons was pillow almost coincident in pronunciation with her nickname. Everybody called her Pilo. For a long time that was a constant talking point at home. Pillow, pillow, pillow.... I kept that word strongly etched on my mind with the exclusion of any other English word I could happen to hear. Even, from then on, at night I always rested my head not on an almohada but on my pillow. For almost a decade, as Ive said, pillow meant the only item of the English vocabulary living inside my memory, sleeping and secretly waiting for some fellows to come.

-IILATIN Evidently teaching English was not an early calling for me. Now, I go on telling my friends about a second step (or was it a hurdle?) toward what eventually turned out to be, unexpectedly, my true livelihood. With pillow still dormant in the depths of my brain, in 1941, being as immature as a stupid boy can be at twelve, I turned to be a little unconscious God hunter and entered a religious pre-seminar school.

Very soon there I fell in love not so much with Jesus or the Virgin Mary but with the Latin language. I was very keen on learning difficult declensions and conjugations and everything having to do with the language of Cicero, Virgil, Caesar, Horace and their civilization. I was a very hardworking student and a very quick learner in this field. Latin became my passion. Up to the late 1940s, wherever my body could be, my mental linguistic habitat was predominantly the Ancient Roman Empire. Of course, I took also contact with medieval Latin and its ecclesiastical and philosophical expressions and, especially, its ravishing musical Gregorian melodies. English? Where was English then? Absolutely absent from my young mind, save by the dormant pillow. Was this word, all the same, a mysterious seed? Just in case it took a long time for it to germinate. Perhaps I can mention, incidentally, that I paid then several imaginary visits to Britannia and in one of them I was delighted listening to public readings of Martials Epigrams in Londinium. But, of course, they were read in Latin!

-IIIFRENCH PERFUME.
English, at last? Not yet. A new linguistic visitor came to share a room with Latin in my then fresh linguistic neuronal cells. The story goes on this way: All my friends know that later in my life I took for myself the motto linyera de alma (a hobo at heart) but the reality it stands for was certainly in me from my early days: I dont go in search of things; I am simply waiting for things to come to me. If anything, maybe I can say I was, by birth, linguistically-minded, but concrete languages were coming to me really at random. Well, the case is Id started the secondary school and had French as one of the subjects. I found it easy and interesting. However, my attitude was quite different from that of my teachers. They insisted on conversational French. I was, from the beginning, eager to read in French... Reading what? I was a regular reader of Spanish literature, but, by that time, an interest in theoretical linguistics and other stuff like that had aroused in me; so I quickly developed, all by myself, a capacity to read French authors in their original language. I visited such fellows as Saussure, Grammond, Rousseau, Maritain, and others... Reading and reading French. When? Most of my time in those days was devoted to teaching Latin at different levels (grammar and literature) in the religious Seminar where I was cloistered away (with my books) near Buenos Aires. Personal reading was made in moments stolen from sleep and rest, among a lot of menial tasks assigned to me. English? Was this the last installment of the story of my way toward becoming finally acquainted with English? Not at all! There were still other linguistic steps awaiting in the horizon.

-IVA LINGUISTIC SALAD

My linguistic life during the decade preceding my thirtieth birthday was especially active even if a bit disorderly: To cut a long story short Ill summarize these linguistically intensive years in a few lines, leaving aside certain chronological details: Classic Greek became a new glowing academic concern with all its literary and philosophical world, together with some personal exploratory raids on Sanskrit, Hebrew and Sumerian. Japanese and Chinese were also perfunctorily visited. Some Slovenian friends made me acquainted with the Slavic type of languages. And so on and so forth... Italian was the official language of the religious institution I belonged to and for years I was exposed to longish readings in that language while we were silently eating at lunch and dinner. Besides that I made, with pleasure, some private literary Italian reading. After the war, English had started being taught as the foreign language instead of French at the secondary level in the Institute where I was. For reasons I cannot guess I was strongly opposed in those post-war years to a global expansion of English as a universal second language. I was, on the contrary, a decided user and promoter of Esperanto instead. The last, not the least, circumstance to be mentioned with respect to this incredible linguistic salad is that, all by myself, as usual, I have in those days also taken the initiative of learning some German, not for conversation, of course, but just to be able to patiently read something. German and English had recently been mortal enemies but everybody knows they are linguistically closely akin by birth. This German step gave my brain a fairly clear notion of the structural frame of Germanic languages and made me acquainted with lots of Germanic roots regarding vocabulary. So, being a bit over thirty, still too boyish perhaps in many respects, I was sharply, and even voluntarily outside the realm of the English language, but English was at the door, waiting to intrude in some way or other on the privacy of my linguistic world.

-VA LINGUISTIC STANDOFF

Without strict precision concerning dates I had arrived to a point in my life I would simply call While my practical life was mainly devoted to teaching, inside the walls of my religious prison, teaching especially classic languages, a job I performed with pleasure. very seriously and, I think, professionally, and even lovingly, the rest of my time which was, so to speak, under control of my authorities was assigned to the most diverse activities, some of them more or less indifferently accepted and some others deeply hated. My mental (spiritual?) life was that of a true hermit, in a world almost exclusively seen through words. New horizons? New appeals? New interests? A true standoff. However, that seemingly unmovable standoff was suddenly broken by an unexpected actual citation with English. The compelling citation was with the American-English Nobel Prize in Literature, a leader of the modernist movement, T. S. Eliot. Here you have the story: The teacher of English at our Institute was a bizarre priest, who happened to be one of my few friends. He was not a professional teacher but knew a lot of English and he was very great in many respects.

Summer holidays. A quiet retreat in the hills of Tandil. Sitting under a pine tree. He invited me to work together in the translation of one of Eliots most particular works, his verse drama Murder in the Cathedral. I accepted at once. Just a new linguistic challenge. How nice! An unimagined gift: spending my holidays in close touch with my dear realm of the Greek tragedy, because of the structure of Eliots drama, and in close touch with a delightful medieval atmosphere, with respect to the content of the drama. Besides, something dealing with opposition to authority attracted me viscerally. I really enjoyed the adventure. It was, moreover, a golden door to more adventures in reading English literature and written English at large. Reading and writing. Conversation? Far away. Teaching English? Not in my remote dreams. Surprisingly enough, within a couple of years, this linguistic standoff turned out to be a sort of starting point on my way to becoming a teacher of English for the rest of my existence and it was even a real start in more than one aspect in my life.

-VIA LINGUISTIC DUTY

The beginning of a crucial turning point. 1960. State of affairs: I belonged to an essentially educational religious institution, with numerous schools in the country. At those schools, then, teaching was, in a preponderant part, in the hands of members of the order. Around that year Frondizis government took the decision, in exchange for a certain degree of freedom given to private schools, that all the teaching staff should be in possession of an official degree. For the primary level there was no problem because practically all the members (me included) had an official degree of MAESTRO NORMAL NACIONAL. The problem concerned the secondary schools and the professors of theiir rather ample variety of subjects. Well, in the religious orders there was something called vote of obedience. You should comply with the decisions of the formal authorities whether you like it or not. Their will was Gods will. Ignatius of Loyola said you must obey tamquam cadaver (as if you were a corpse). Whether as a corpse or as a robot you should do what they wanted you to do. Mine, of course, was not such an extreme case. Many of my mates were directed to take various courses in order to cover a wide scope of school subjects. What about me? After a short dialogue they decided that my future was to be a professor of English. It was their choice, not mine. Or, perhaps, it was also my choice after considering a variety of options. Certainly It was not my calling; it was not my free will; I simply took it as a duty. Yes, a duty. I personally felt I was in debt with the order because it had given me, being an orphan, sustenance and education. I had already worked free for it but I thought it was not enough. Thats why it was a duty, but, all things considered, not a too heavy duty. It was not entirely against my will. It was, in a way, something related to my through and through linguistic interests. Possibly all this sounds a bit too personal. But it was, no doubt, a hard moment for the prospective teacher of English. Tell me, is it easy for an expert in teaching dead languages to overnight become a professional teacher of a living language?

-VII-

A LINGUISTIC BATTLEGROUND
1960-1963: Four years spent in something at least very similar to A complete course to get an official degree of PROFESOR NACIONAL DE INGLS. The course in itself could be described as very good. What made it an actual battle were the surrounding circumstances. Ill try to describe approximately as follows: Conditions:

I was living at Bernal. The course was in Buenos Aires. I became a kind of commuter. A daily evening trip by railroad (which was not so bad as today but only a little better). The rest of my time except evening time (from 5 pm to 10 pm) was devoted to my usual tasks. No extra time available for the new endeavor. Time to read new material? Time to write assignments? Time to do searching? Time to prepare lessons? Just stolen in little bits from here and there...

Expectations:

My teachers were excellent in their respective areas, and their interests and expectations were absolutely clear and definite with respect to the result of the course. Even if the communicative teaching resources were just tentative at that time the professors had in mind, no doubt, the prospective profile of a teacher being able to train a rather numerous group of adolescents using an incipient communicative language teaching method, emphasizing interaction as the means and the goal. I was at the opposite side of a very deep and wide gap. My focus, in teaching dead languages, was fixed on the written text. Besides, all of my no so little experience had been in the field of written English. How to adapt myself to the new atmosphere? The prospect was clear-cut; the practice, hard and laborious. The process took not very little time. The result was only moderate.

Challenges:

Goal:

To speak and write of things I was not interested in. To use a kind of language far from the one I was used to deal with.

I finished the course fairly well, judging by usual parameters. I finally had an official degree to teach English. And now, what? End or beginning? I was thirty five, a rather mature man. A brain full of intellectual stuff. A mind absolutely empty with respect to ideas having to do with what real life is. A change was lurking. New things were to occur in my life for reasons unknown to me and that I had no control over. Related to English? Yes.

-VIIIA LINGUISTIC NO MANS LAND

Graduation was not enough to become a teacher of English. Five long years ( a never-ending lustrum! ) were still there, as a kind of When, as a boy, reading about trench warfare during the World War I, I got familiar with this expression. I think it might properly be applied to the period immediately following my getting the official license to teach English at schools.

At the beginning of 1964 I received what technically was called a letter of obedience. I had been destined to a school in Mar del Plata. After spending more than twenty years in a religious seminar, as a student first (secondary school / Latin / philosophy / theology) and as a teacher then, mainly of classic languages, I was really feeling absolutely tired of that closed-in-itself atmosphere and even involuntary accomplice in the preparation of other young people for a kind of life I was already convinced I did not belong to. I will never know why but my whole fate in a way or other was tied to personal linguistic events both theoretical and practical. In this case, the afore-mentioned letter of obedience (at least partially originated in my graduation as a teacher of English) became a kind of a positive passport not only to a new unknown place but, more important still, to a new unknown way of life. I found myself a new actor on a new stage. In charge of lessons of English together with some other subjects (for which I was in possession of a provisional license) to complete a fairly heavy teaching day. In front of a lot of male students quite different in their expectations and attitudes from the ones in the seminar. Within a real world (and not an artificial one). All this was accompanied by a fervent belated exploration of the outside world through radio by becoming a ham, through long bicycle tours, through every means available to me... Discovery of a new world would be a right name for this period. English, no doubt, had a great part of responsibility for the change. It was a step. A true gigantic step. From intellect to practice. From a bubble to reality. But concerning my being a teacher of English it hardly was a yes/no period. I was just a part-time teacher of English, doing my best in this area.

-IXA LIVELIHOOD TRHOUGH ENGLISH

One day, being already a bit over forty, I found myself in need to make. In a life lacking a personal project things may happen abruptly. Overnight I found myself concretely not only outside a religious order but even outside any religion at all. Free, materially and spiritually. Free in a real world. Free, but without a cent in my pocket. An actual linyera de alma [a true hobo at heart]. In the religious house I had handled no private money. I had worked for the order and they had given me clothes and bread. Those were the accepted conditions. Now, utterly alone, I had to do something for myself or die. Quite unexpectedly some jobs were offered to me: just teaching English. I had no choice but to turn to the only practical tool I had at hand: teaching English. To survive. Just to survive. I started working for a salary. Doing what? Teaching English! Where? A variety of schools, private and official; adolescents and adults; morning, afternoon, evening. In the city and near places. Officially authorized teachers of English in Mar del Plata were not so many at that time. Precisely for this last reason at least three places were opened in those days to prepare teachers of English (Universidad Catlica, Universidad Provincial, Instituto Municipal de Estudios Superiores). With small intervals I was invited by the three of them to teach especially History of the English Language, Grammar and Linguistics. It meant the beginning of my reunion with my intimate (almost in-born) lines of thought. Moreover, after a time, in one of those schools I knew a woman. We married. An entirely new life. A never dreamed life. Living in a happy company. Working for a family. English was becoming both a need and, in some aspects, a pleasure. But there was still a hurdle (or a wall). I felt that teaching (in a way or other) linked me too much to the past, a past I wanted buried for ever. It was a kind of navel string I wanted to cut. In search of this I earnestly attempted to find a different job. I tried over twenty initiatives. All of them, one after the other ended in gruesome failures. I had no alternative but to go on teaching

Teaching English became and remained my only tool to survive. I started feeling identified with that task. Besides I started finding the job no so disgusting. I really met so many nice people! A true positive step!

-XA LAST LAST STEP

The previous one was, finally, an undeniable happy step. But there was still

Omnia tempus habent, the Scripture says, all things have their time. And there was a time for me to retire. Altogether? It would have meant dying; English had become an essential part of my life. Biology came to the aid in my last decade. My diabetes was in an irrepressible progress. I became a double amputee. I started spending long hours in front of a computer screen translating Chesterton and others for a publishing house in Buenos Aires and dealing with philosophical and historical material in English for some foreign universities. And...into the bargain, I am still teaching some live friendly lessons to real (not virtual) people to get my fix. English was one of the last concrete languages coming within the circle of my linguistic interest. It arrived quietly. It arrived in earnest. It arrived to stay. It arrived to be an almost essential part of my life. I just say: Thanks!