Brent Wexler — Teaching Statement 2001-02
Lecturer, Spanish

I first arrived at UCSC as a student in 1984. Aside from the time I have spent traveling and living abroad, Santa Cruz has been my home ever since. My life was fundamentally influenced by my undergraduate years, especially due to a number of teachers with whom I had contact. Having experienced firsthand the essence of this institution and this campus, it now gives me immense pleasure to be able to participate in the lives of students here. I am truly honored that some of them have nominated me for an Excellence in Teaching Award. While I have invested much energy in the nearly two years I have been teaching at UCSC, I hesitate not in accrediting students with the apparent success of our (not "my") classes. Beyond childhood, to begin to learn a foreign language is challenging at best, utterly frightening in many cases. Therefore, it seems only fitting that the students be given ample recognition for their boldness and their accomplishments in our Spanish classes.

Thus far, I have taught only first-year Spanish courses (Spanish 1-3). My objective in these courses is to help students communicate clearly in Spanish and, hopefully, in all languages at their disposal. As a non-native speaker of Spanish, one of my greatest pedagogical assets is that I model enthusiasm, confidence and success in the process of acquiring another language. I feel that the model I provide is quite valuable for beginning students who are developing the four basic skills in Spanish, those of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The majority of the students in the first-year classes arrive with very little confidence when it comes to uttering comprehensible Spanish. Initially, my goal is to coax them out of their shells so that they can begin to fumble and stumble their way toward expressing a coherent message in this language. Ultimately, I want to help students experience the vast wonder of a world that lies beyond our own perceived, often monolingual, limitations. Maybe one of them will become a bilingual educator in the local district. Another may conduct archeological research in Latin America someday. Still, it may be that some students find themselves speaking Spanish on the bus with a local resident. For these people, I want Spanish to become a tool of authentic and clear communication, regardless of the context.

The courses I teach are driven by a highly dynamic, interactive approach to learning Spanish. Many of us wish to have another language under our belt, yet we are at an extreme disadvantage by having to study a new language in a non-native environment, one lacking immersion. I tell students that Spanish will not be given to them as a communication tool, that I will not “spoon-feed” them Spanish. In the classroom, it becomes immediately manifest that students have to carry out a demanding, active function in their own education. For many, this challenge is the impetus for their effort; for many, as well, the reward lies in the joy and satisfaction of being able to communicate confidently, and competently, in another language.

In our classes, the line distinguishing student from teacher is not absolute. While, to my own benefit, I am continually learning from students, to their benefit, they are constantly active in the growth and success of their classmates. They do so daily by participating in exercises in which they engage the course material, quite often literally teaching lessons to each other. We endeavor to learn the language through creating an entirely Hispanic environment. Our goal is to approximate an authentic Hispanic micro-community. I rely upon music, poetry and more than two decades of exposure to Hispanic language and cultures to guide students in this dynamic. The progress of each individual, and the class as a whole, is dependent upon every student’s vital and sincere commitment to surrendering their native tongue for at least 280 minutes per week. After the first day of Spanish One, I speak Spanish ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time in class. I ask students to demonstrate a similar level of commitment to speaking the language. A student’s overall grade weighs heavily on class participation in which they are always using Spanish to convey their message during group activities. One must prepare in advance in order to participate. If students do not prepare themselves in advance, they are not fulfilling their commitment to the social fabric of the class.

I encourage and require beginning-level students to speak Spanish even though they risk error. In fact, I require them to make mistakes and I communicate to them that this is a fundamental, and inevitable, part of the process. I distinguish between the “vital mistake” and the “fatal mistake." I claim that without making "mistakes" in the language classroom, we are killing the educational potential of every act of communication. A “vital mistake” is one that serves to indicate to me that which I do not understand. A “fatal mistake” is my failure to exploit my lack of understanding so as to arrive at real understanding. In the collective context of language learning, each act of communication is an educational opportunity for the entire class. As I draw attention to some moment of communication in class, I do this so that we all may learn. Therefore, when a student “makes a mistake,” she is generously helping all of us to learn more about Spanish, and she is helping to propel us toward our collective goal of becoming a functioning Hispanic micro-community. Through constant monitoring, I assess students’ knowledge of the material and I evaluate their contribution to the class dynamic.

Since I have only had minimal formal training as an educator, I rely upon my passion for people, and language, combined with my own learning experiences, to drive my pedagogy. I make a fool of myself in front of students, pulling out all the stops in order to model the kind of risk-taking innocence necessary to learn the language. Students appear to be moved by the level of raw energy with which I arrive to class each day. This energy arises from my deep-seated belief in the value of learning a foreign language, and from my love of people and life. I believe that the whole world may benefit from our efforts to relate to other ways of being, to other forms of perception, many of the keys to which are held in language. As a developing educator, I see that the spirit of teaching is not to impart knowledge for subsequent regurgitation though, quite ironically, imitation is one of the most effective tools in language learning. I hope that through my teaching I am able to help students cultivate tools that allow them to deftly engage all aspects of life, in the same way that working with them has allowed me to live more fully.