For the love of language Marian Blat teaches Spanish at FSU Valencia, giving students the necessary speaking skills to communicate in their new environment By Caroline Murkey
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anguage is a principal component of any society. Being able to communicate with each other is just as important as having an organized government and laws. Through language, people convey their ideas, feelings, and emotions to appreciate one another. Florida State University Valencia instructor Maria Antonia Blat Mir expresses the concept simply: “You need language to be understood and to understand,” she says. “I work a lot on phonetics [in my classes] because I say to my students, ‘even if you know a lot of grammar but you don’t pronounce the words, you cannot be understood,’ and all of their effort means nothing.” When FSU students sign up to study abroad in Valencia, Spain, many take Spanish classes to improve their proficiency. Blat, who also goes by the first name Marián, is one of several instructors who teach the language in Valencia.
Photo courtesy of Marian Blat
Marian Blat, during one of her visits to Bari, Italy, which was her home for seven years.
Language as a field of study inspires Blat, and she is currently working on transcribing and editing manuscripts from the 15th and 16th centuries for her doctoral degree. She says that seeing how language has changed over time is thought provoking for her. Blat says that being able to teach students about language balances out the stressful parts of the job. “I love the language,” she says. “All the syntax, grammar, morphology, lexical, phonetics—everything.” Blat studied language at the University of Valencia, and she was working on her Ph.D. while she taught two classes at Florida State University’s Valencia campus: Elementary Spanish I and II. Blat describes her teaching style as “changing.” Originally, she focused on grammar, but now, Blat directs her teaching toward helping students navigate the streets and businesses of Valencia. “At the beginning, maybe I was more focused on grammar but now…I’ve realized that students need to learn something that they can use,” Blat says.
Logan Foltz was a student of Blat’s in the Elementary Spanish II class in the summer of 2019. “She incorporates many interactive activities that allow the students to apply the Spanish they’re learning to life in Valencia,” says Foltz, who is majoring in interdisciplinary medical sciences at FSU. One of the ways Blat helps her students to stay motivated and focused on the curriculum is through field trips and activities. One of trips she took students on was to a yoga class. At the studio, the students met with a yoga instructor who spoke only Spanish. The exercise was to help students better understand the parts of the body, and Blat wanted students to visualize the body parts as the instructor was saying them. “She would say ‘move your right arm, move your right leg’ and then they might not know all the vocabulary but they understood most of it,” Blat says. Blat also coordinates for students an activity similar to “speed dating.” “Basically, how this works is she puts people in pairs to talk about a specific
“I love the language. All the syntax, grammar, morphology, lexical, phonetics— everything.” — FSU Valencia instructor Marian Blat 22 Nomadic Noles // Summer 2019
