Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Marie-Louise Sai

This past Thursday, members of Lima Sunrise Rotary Club had the pleasure of listening to Maria De la Lama from the Instituto Pedagógico Nacional where she is presently the director.

Maria De la Lama highlighted the importance of mastering the English language in Lima for the purpose of business. In today’s global economy, where major firms have branches and businesses in most areas of the world, it is beneficial to be fluent in English.

At the Instituto Pedagógico Nacional, the English lessons and objectives correspond with the practical use of language learning. In other words, the students learn from real life situations, whereby the context of the language taught has a function in every day business life. 

When I arrived in Peru, I enrolled in a Spanish course at a local language school in order to upgrade my basic Spanish speaking skills. I did not spend enough time deciding on which school of languages to attend. I felt that a course at an intermediate level would provide the standard needed to survive many of the everyday language battles.  I was wrong.

I soon realized that the language school I attended had good teachers, but that the objective of the course did not provide me with the practical use of the language.
There is a lot of value in learning, memorizing and practicing new verbs and new vocabulary; however, the material taught needs to be more life serving with a focus on adapting to a new country. After all, the frustration of living in a country where the language is different brings about a condition referred to as culture shock.

In coping with culture shock it is important to accept that no matter how well prepared you are before arriving in a host country, culture shock will affect you to some extent. While living in a new country, a person usually goes through three different stages of culture shock in order to fully adapt.  The first stage upon arrival is that of the honeymoon period when everything is a delight and language learning is studied with much enthusiasm. This stage is usually short lived.

After living in the host country for a while, a person will experience feelings of depression and sometime aggression towards the new culture and language. This is recognized as stage two of culture shock. I was disappointed at myself when simple incidents triggered antagonistic feelings in me. One day at the bank I became frustrated because I did not have all the necessary vocabulary to perform a task. I felt that the bank teller was making no effort to understand what I was trying to say. 

The cultural differences and the lack of necessary language to perform simple daily tasks were now a source of conflict for me. In the classroom, I was loosing interest because the lessons context did not correspond to the real life situations I was living.

Eventually, I decided that to reach a level where I could speak confidently with native speakers, and where I could perform daily tasks easily, I needed to change schools. As Maria De la Lama indicated, it is important that you choose a program that meets your learning needs whether your focus is social or business.
 
Lima has many good language schools, but you need to take the time in finding the one that will give you the results that you wish. For me, it became important to learn small amounts of authentic material that could be easily spoken in actual conversations. I also wanted to practice speaking the language in the classroom as much as possible. If you are in a large classroom setting, it becomes more difficult to receive individual attention, so pay attention to class size when deciding on a course. Also, the content and format of the language lesson should depend on your profession, proficiency of the language and your own personal objectives.

Once you have the confidence and appreciation to communicate in the new language with native speakers, you will have reached the third step of culture shock, the acceptance stage. This stage is a rewarding period of discovery and cultural enhancement. I knew I had reached the acceptance stage when I successfully placed a phone call to a cable company and the conversation was fluid. This marvelous realization made me feel euphoric.

Adjusting to a new country is a rewarding and delightful experience but it can also be difficult. Once the language is mastered at a level of confidence for the individual, positive aspects of the host culture start to be appreciated. Problems are then viewed as a rich tapestry of living in another country.