How languages changed my life:
The year was 1992 and I had just started Spanish in my secondary school in Northern Ireland. Soon I realised that I loved how Spanish sounded. It whispered to me of lands far away, of exotic places I couldn’t even imagine. I sat agog as my teacher was able to translate words that made no sense to me at all. I wanted to understand it. It seemed like a passport to experiences that lay far beyond the grey skies outside our window.
A love affair with Spanish
I set about learning Spanish with a quiet diligence that I applied to all my subjects. Reams of scrap paper lined my bedroom as I repeatedly wrote out words for vocabulary tests. However, listening to Spanish proved to be a more difficult skill so I played my single cassette tape of Spanish every night hoping that the sounds would begin to make sense to me. Speaking Spanish was trickier still and my weekly visits to the language assistant were punctuated by embarrassed giggles and awkward silences.
In our A level year, a letter came out for a school exchange trip to Spain. I threw it in the bin without giving it to my parents as I knew it would be unaffordable. When I overheard the teacher say that the girls who had been on the exchange trip now spoke the best Spanish in the class, it fuelled me to work harder. The single cassette tape whirred more frequently in my tape player and the reams of scrap paper became more bountiful. I left school that year with the school Spanish prize and a burning desire to visit a Spanish speaking country.
Peruvian dreams
Fast forward 6 years and I am popping to the supermarket in Tarapoto, Northern Peru. I have been working in Tarapoto for a year as a language assistant for the British Council. In the supermarket, I bump into my Peruvian friends Nancy, Carolina and Jessica who are buying food for my leaving party. My heart breaks to leave them as I have had the most extraordinary year imaginable. I have battled insect bites, loneliness and culture shock but this now feels like home. I am amazed that despite being born on different continents and growing up speaking different languages, I feel such a kinship with these people. The ring of jungle covered mountains surrounding us feels like a protective shield and part of me never wants to leave. I haven’t spoken a word of English for a year. I dream in Spanish.
South America – a special connection
Over the next 7 years I returned to South America at every opportunity I could get. I spent several weeks with my wonderful Peruvian friends in Lima. I met some of the funniest, warmest limeños (people from Lima) imaginable. Every time I left, I imagined that it would never be that good again. Each time I returned I loved it more than before.
On one solo trip to Argentina, I decided to leave a career as a solicitor in which I was unhappy and become a Spanish teacher. Spanish had made me brave and finally it gave me the freedom to be myself.
Now, with two young children, South America seems somewhat more inaccessible. However, I am teaching them both Spanish and have told them that they will, one day, be coming to the jungle with me. It delights me to hear Spanish coming out of their mouths and Spanish is a part of our lives every day.
Nowadays, my treat to myself is to make a Peruvian coffee and listen to a Spanish podcast about people’s lives in South America. It always moves me to hear, in Spanish, about the struggles that real people face in South America, especially in these times of Covid. Spanish makes me feel grateful, it gives me perspective and humbles me.
Thank you, Spanish, for truly changing my life.
Paula Pocock
- Spanish Teacher, West Jesmond Primary School, Newcastle
- Member of Newcastle City of Languages working group
