I've been thinking about this lady in San Miguel de Allende. I don't know her well. I've never met her, actually, but we have corresponded. She told me that she's tried learning Spanish. She's spent money she didn't have to attend classes that yielded little in the way of spoken fluency in the language. Her experience? It's very typical. You come to Mexico, you might even come to live, and take classes only to find very little, if any, success in learning the language. Imagine the despair, the frustration, and the emptiness.
I've seen a trend in the research I've been doing lately. I've been looking at American expats in many different countries involved from Foreign Service to simple retirement. The overwhelming common theme that dominates almost all of the Americans in foreign countries is the linguistic inability to communicate with the locals of the country.
Some Americans, let's face it, do not want to learn the language. If they don't have to, why bother? They associate with other monolingual Americans and locals who speak English. In Asia during the 1950's, the locals called the enclaved Americans The Social Incest Club.
What is so sad to me are those who want to learn the language and make a valiant attempt only to fail. They want to significantly expand the social group with which to have communion and fellowship but they can't. They are forced either to mingle with the Gringolandia "Social Incest Clubs" exclusively or they remain alone and isolated. These are motivated people who need to know a secret.
The "Translation Method" of language instruction, the method which dominates almost everywhere, by design cannot work to teach you spoken fluency.
What are all the different language instruction methods that have come down the pike in the last 100 years? Why are there so many methods and which ones, if any, really work?
