UNLP News
September 30th 2013
Happy 20 th Anniversary Escuela de Lenguas
Students’ Experiences Learning a Foreign language: It’s never late to start.
Mauricio, Marina and Guido students in Adults 6 B say, �When we are children, we do not often decide to start learning a foreign language on our own. Usually, our parents make us study because they think that it will be very important for our future lives. Probably, if you ask a little boy if he wants to start learning English, he prefers to use his time in another activity. However, when we grow up, in the professional life we start seeing how only speaking our mother tongue limits us to access to better job and study opportunities and moreover it gives us the opportunity to share experiences with people from foreign countries, and learning about different cultures. Then many of us decide to start a 2 course when we are adults. foreign language
Whatever the reason was, we started a language course at the Escuela de Lenguas UNLP. The School gives us the opportunity to learn different languages at different stages of our lives, inside our University community. Whatever your age is, the school offers different courses to learn different languages and this makes it easier and more fun.
It’s more than learning a language ‌. We came here with the aim of learning a language but then we created ties and shared a part of our lives with each other. As a consequence of this, we have a lot of anecdotes like eating dinner in a partner's house, or why not in the teacher’s house. This represents a good opportunity to meet our classmates outside the classroom. Of course, if the dinner is a barbecue, we will enjoy it more than anything else, but for this it is necessary to have someone that wants to make it. On the other hand, it is also a good opportunity to know if someone who always says he that plays the guitar, really does. Fortunately, we study not only for the test, but we also prepare presentations about topics that are really interesting for us, related with our jobs, studies or personal experiences. And obviously we learn new things from the other partners too. We sometimes have classmates from other countries, who show us typical things, like kind of dances or beverages and that is a great experience.We also practise our English playing games like Taboo with or seeing films with students from another class. At first playing Taboo is a good way to use English 3
and learn words but it becomes a competition and both groups want to win, that makes it more exciting and fun. To conclude, learning a language is, not only having the ability to communicate and write in another language but also knowing about other cultures, meeting new people and making new friends.
Gullermo, another student in Adults 6, writes about his experience studying at UNLP: When I was a child my parents send me to Rafael Hernandez National School. Surely, they hoped I would receive a very good education. I think they imagined I would be able to have the best tools at the University and to build an important future for my life. At that time, before going to the National School, I could not understand the meaning of my parents’ decision. In my thirteen years old everything about the new step was mysterious and intimidating. But, the first day I went into the National I discovered a new world. A new world where it was possible to develop the learning process from a humanistic point of view. A place where critical thinking and social and environmental issues were always present .A place where I have learnt the pleasure of learning. We live in a city which is a synonym of the University. Walking on the streets of La Plata, you can breathe University. We cannot think of our city without the University. This is a very strong part of our identity and one of the reasons why we are so proud to live in La Plata. Life is a long path which constantly provides us different kind of opportunities. Very often we let it go. However, life is generous and it usually gives us a second chance: a business opportunity, an economic opportunity, a learning opportunity or a love opportunity‌.. I don’t know why, perhaps because my father speaks English very well, I have always wanted to speak it well too. Unfortunately, I did not take advantage of every possibility I had. For a long time it was an unfulfilled dream. One day, as an adult, I decided to solve this conflict. I started to take private classes, but, without enough continuity. After a few years, I had achieved a little progress, when I felt I wanted to study in a group and somebody recommended me the Escuela de Lenguas. Since 2011 I have been learning English here. It was a very good decision.Firstly, because I felt the same that I felt when I was a child. I feel the happiness of being at the University again and learning much more than a language. In conclusion, I have to be grateful with my parents, professors and partners. I am very proud I have been at the University rooms. I am happy to study at Escuela de Lenguas, a place where I have found a synthesis of what I have written before. For me, a beautiful second chance. Happy Anniversary! 4