Vygotsky goes to Málaga

Evidently my friend Brynn was serious when she suggested a few reader’s choice topics, so I will dedicate this next post to her (and to all of you who manage to make it through reading this). She asked how the work of Vygotsky relates to learning Spanish in Spain. Um, it has everything to do with it… but here goes…

For a little background, I did my first senior research project on Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory applied to language learning in higher education. No, I did not exactly choose that topic on my own, but it did lead to some very interesting quotes… “Lindsay’s topic is easy,” “when you finish this paper you may as well start on your dissertation,” and at 3am, “Are you beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel?” “Yes, and St. Peter is standing at the gate.” Basically, Vygotsky was a Russian educational psychologist (?-1934) who worked after the Bolshevik Revolution, researching learning and cognition to determine the best way to educate a country of peasants with little formal education. His sociocultural theory is based on the premises that learning is a social process, learners must be guided through development by collaborating with experts, and ideas are mediated by symbolic systems like language. So how does that relate to my life in Spain? Well, even though my classes would make Vygotsky roll over in his grave- a professor just lecturing for 2 hours- in my daily life I am surrounded by “experts” at home, at church, with my friends, etc. who I can listen to in order to find out how they say things, and who help me learn words in the place and time I need them. I also have tutorials every Wednesday afternoon with one of the professors in the program who makes me talk about specific subjects and corrects me when I make mistakes. And at the beginning of my internship, my bosses guided me through the process of writing the descriptions they wanted: they told me what they wanted, the edited mine, and now I write them on my own. Everything I learn here about Spanish I learn and use immediately in a social setting with people who know more than I do. It’s not completely Vygoskian, but it’s a whole lot better than sitting in a classroom in America learning verb conjugations and only talking Spanish to other American students. There, that’s a very quick, simplified answer.

Another reader’s choice question concerned hot Spanish men. Well, from what I’ve seen, half the people in Spain are men. Some are young, some are old, some are pretty good-looking, some not so much. No, I have not run off and married one of said men.
And so I don’t lose all my readers, I’ll take this opportunity to talk about a trip I took to Málaga two weekends ago. Málaga is 2.5 hours south-west of here, on the Mediterranean coast. My roommate knows some people at a missionary center down there so we took the train down to visit them. The cool thing is, every trip I have taken since spring break has either been to see people I have contacts with, or go with people I know. Pretty sweet considering I didn’t know tons of people in Europe before I came.

Anyway, when we arrived we spent the afternoon by ourselves touring the center. We saw a Roman amphitheater that is being excavated and the old Arab castle. I’ve seen a lot of Arab castles so far, but this is one of my favorites. It consists of walls surrounding 3 different houses/palaces, and literally goes up a mountain. The Arabs had a very unique style of architecture- they used lots of arches, rarely rounded, and emphasized nature, such as gardens in patios. There is always water flowing: in fountains, pools, and in trenches around the rooms. The Arabs borrowed from the Roman ruins next to the castle, converting some of the columns into supports for the palace. In Spain, every culture has built on the previous one, from the Romans to the Arabs to the Christians, and this is reflected in almost every city I have seen in Southern Spain. It took us a while to explore the rooms in the castle, especially since they built them all in different sections winding around for increased security, so when we finished it was almost time to meet up with the missionaries. But I wanted to see the view of the city from the top of the mountain, so in honor of Wounded Knee who likes to charge up mountains, I left my roommate at the bottom and jogged up in record time.
The missionaries let us stay in an apartment in the complex normally used for visiting missionaries, and we used the kitchen to make ourselves a nice dinner of stir-fry (not very Spanish but good). The next day they gave us a tour of the complex. They have an incredible ministry of radio, television, and training courses for areas south of Spain. After that, we took off for downtown Málaga again, even though it was raining. After walking around the docks and the lighthouse, we went down to the beach because I wanted to at least touch the Mediterranean (every time I’ve seen it has been in the rain). As soon as I handed my camera to Kourtney to take proof of my visit, the heavens opened, sending us scurrying to the Picasso museum where it was dry inside. It was actually a pretty cool museum… not all of his work is crazy. We went back to Sevilla in the evening in time for church on Sunday. All righty, it’s back to studying for exams for me. Hasta luego!