ABOUT OUR STUDENTS AND STAFF

From our 5/16/07 email. This is our first Meet our Students email. We hope to feature a student or staff member each month. Our first star is Greg Sherman, a Carrboro firefighter. What follows are his words.

I first started Spanish at CHICLE two and a half years ago with Level 1. I had never studied any Spanish at all prior to beginning with CHICLE. What prompted me to learn was the increasing frequency of communication difficulties regularly arising at the fire department on both emergency calls and with routine contact with citizens at the station.

I would not say I use my Spanish a lot - although certainly frequently - particularly on medical emergency calls and with the installation of child safety seats at the station. I have also used it to present several fire safety talks at restaurants and I even presented a two hour safety class at El Centro Latino in Spanish, albeit with some help from an interpreter who was present.

When I am able to ease an anxious parent's concern about a sick child at a medical call or I am able to help a paramedic treat a patient whom he would not otherwise be able to communicate with by being able to speak some Spanish, I find it a very satisfying thing. The same goes for educating parents on how to use properly their child's car seat.

I believe this country should always be a place where everyone feels welcome, and if I can contribute a small amount to foster this for the Latino community in North Carolina by learning to speak Spanish, I am more than happy and excited to do that. Learning Spanish has also helped me develop a greater awareness and appreciation of Hispanic history and culture-something that was long overdue.

On a more general level, I have lived in Carrboro for 16 years.  I moved down here to attend graduate school at UNC-CH. In 1994, while attending UNC, I joined the Carrboro Fire Department as a volunteer. I loved working as a firefighter so much I decided to continue on with them on a full-time basis starting in 1995, and I have been there ever since. I have a wife and 15 year old step-daughter, who studies Spanish at Chapel Hill High School.

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From our 6/13/07 email. This is the second of our "meet" emails. We introduce you to Betsy Fenhagen. In Betsy's words:

Finding an advanced conversation French class at CHICLE five years ago was an exciting event for me.

I was fortunate, many years ago, to attend an elementary school where French was taught from the first grade. I also went several years to a summer camp where French was spoken. This gave me a good start with the language. Later, as wife of a foreign service officer who spoke fluent French, I was able to improve my ability with the language when we were assigned to several Francophone ex-colonies in Africa. My early beginnings with the French language stood me in good stead in Tunisia, Republic of the Congo, Morocco and Ivory Coast and helped me communicate with the people in those countries while we lived there. My French improved and was invaluable while living and working abroad.

(Betsy doesn't say this but we know she used her French in many different community projects in Africa. She has an amazing ability to be in the right (or sometimes wrong) place and to do do the right thing. She quietly and even inconspicuously, but always with extraordinary determination, helps people. Do not stand in Betsy Fenhagen's way.)

When Westy and I retired to Chapel Hill, I didn't have many opportunities to speak French and I worried that I was losing my facility with the language. CHICLE's conversation class has not only allowed me to speak with others familiar with French and keep up some proficiency in the language, but also has been an enjoyable hour every week where I could use the language in a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. The classes are a pleasure, with no pressure to compete, and lead by a competent native French speaker. Our conversations are stimulating and often informative about French culture. They have kept me in touch with a language I love over the past five years and also keep me prepared for those all too infrequent trips to France!

Bernard Luscans, CHICLE's first French teacher, says "Betsy Fenhagen is the dream come true student: she is forever young. Because Betsy is a truly Francophile and a studious student as well, we adopted her as our godmother at CHICLE. However, Betsy does not know it, so don't tell her!"

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From our 7/25/07 email. We introduce you this week to Burt Fox and Judith Tintinalli. Both have been studying Spanish with us for a long time. Burt is a video maker and Dr. Judy directs the UNC Hospitals' Emergency Department. They are married to one another.

Burt explains why he studies Spanish.

You can owe a lot of motivation to your family.

My grandfather was a vaudevillian and juggled his way through life using magic wands, bowls that never ran out of water, and heaps of cigar boxes that he kept tossing in the air and never dropped. He spoke very few words. I admired his verbal minimalism and hesitated to learn any languages. My grandfather's brother was a lot more expansive - he spoke seven languages fluently. He was at ease in his polyglot world and looked and sounded like a caballero from Spain's golden age. I admired his aloofness and language skills. He gave me a sense of what style could be.

My father taught me my first words of Spanish. As an eight year old I learned from him that any American English word could be translated to Spanish by adding a terminal "o" or "a", rolling your tongue to make "r" sounds, and shouting when you spoke. My uncle earns his living as an impostor. Years ago he appeared several times on the Johnny Carson show as Howard Hughes' personal chef from Barcelona. I owe to my uncle my first Spanish food words and a yearning for tapas.

When I resumed my Spanish instruction at Chicle after a long learning hiatus it was in part to honor my family and their convoluted attempts to bridge the language divide. Of course, given my heritage, I now want to be the opening act at a tango club in Buenos Aires and tell jokes in Spanish with such acumen that the bartender will say, that man is so loco he must have grown up in mi barrio.

Judy details her odyssey.

Andalusia! Córdoba! España! Of course I accepted the invitation to be a keynote for the first Andalusian Conference of Emergency Medicine. What? I have to speak Spanish? You have no funds for a simultaneous translator? Maybe you can provide someone for the question & answer period?

Thus began my odyssey as a Spanish student. I found a scientist-friend, a Chilean native, who agreed to come to my home, translate my speech into Spanish-language powerpoint slides, and teach me Spanish. In 8 weeks. My husband laughed as I taped the name-cards that were provided with that book, all over the house (drapes, windows, tables, chairs, forks, spoons, etc). Then my colleague recorded my talk, and I practiced mimicking her accent. So, the big day came, but I had practiced so much that by the end of the talk I could actually speak, use the laser-pointer, and look at my audience with eye contact-at the same time!

After that, I was hooked. Besides, being an emergency physician in the Emergency Department at UNC Hospitals, I had to learn how to communicate in a rudimentary fashion with my growing number of Spanish-speaking patients. Now, I thought, I have to get serious about this. With the little free time I had, I went to San Miguel de Allende, to La Academia Hispano-America, for about 2 weeks of daily instruction. Meanwhile, my husband (who was light years ahead of me in Spanish) made me practice rolling my r's and repeating words like 'ferrocarril'.

Then, one day I was walking to the Mediteranean Deli, and I saw a yellow piece of paper taped to the window-CHICLE-it said. Hmmm. My husband tried it first. He reported enthusiastic and cool teachers. So here I am. I still call myself an 'intermittent-intermediate' student-that is, depending on my work schedule and how much I am able to study, sometimes my absences are punctuated with lessons, rather than my classes being punctuated by absences. But Chicle's adaptability to my needs and schedule has been tremendously helpful. I can get a reasonable history from my patients, have enough of a vocabulary to provide them with reassuring updates and comfort during their ED stay, and my patients are very pleased that I try to communicate with them in their native tongue.

Now, besides being able to participate in medical meetings and social events in Mexico and South America, I am getting closer to my dream of being able to easily read some of the world's best Spanish language literature.

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From our 8/15/07 email. Meet Martha Petty, who has studied Italian at CHICLE for several years.

Martha is an artist who has lived in Chapel Hill with her husband for 17 years. When she has the time, she helps out the Piedmont Wildlife Center rehabilitating baby squirrels.

"Three years ago this past spring, I took my first Level 1 Italian class at CHICLE. I had not studied any languages since high school and that was Latin in 10th and 11th grade - ages ago! My husband had been invited to attend a conference in Macerata, Italy, which allowed us both to go to Italy for the first time. I had always wanted to go to Italy and was very excited to be able to take a class at CHICLE so that I could learn some of the common expressions and communicate with people. I had completely forgotten what it was like to learn a language. I was humbled by the process, but felt very comfortable with the teachers and the other students. It helps that everyone in the class is very kind and patient because it can be a little awkward learning a language the first time. I have continued taking Italian classes at CHICLE in hopes that I will get to go back there one day. Also, I have learned that the Italian word for baby squirrels is scoiattolini."

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From our 9/13/07 email. Today we want to introduce you to three of our long-time Spanish students, Galen (on the left), Jared (on the right), and Asher (in the middle) Kirkpatrick. Galen's 13, involved in a lot of different activities, and carries around a gigantic backpack. Jared and Asher are as friendly as they look in their photo; both are eager to particpate in class and we love having them as students.

Ruth Pershing, their mother and a teacher herself, told us the following.

"My eldest son (Galen) began taking weekly Spanish classes at CHICLE when he started elementary school, and he's now entering seventh grade. We can't imagine him ever stopping. It frees up his time in school to take other languages, including at the moment, Latin. The program has always been well-suited to his age, emphasizing phrases and familiar topics for little ones, and moving on to add more complex vocabulary and some writing and grammar now that he's older.

Our two younger ones have followed in Galen's footsteps, taking classes at CHICLE from kindergarten on. All three love the upbeat and collaborative atmosphere of the classes and the combination of immersion, games, activities and conversation. They have a comfort with the language that can only be attained with such steady long-term exposure and with the level of teachers that CHICLE provides."

We are really proud of our children's program and love having them here mornings and afternoons. We are happy to have Ruth boast for us and feel that the number of children who come to weekly classes and multiple summer camps for years on end is the best evidence we could have as to the value of our children's program.

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From our 10/24/07 email. Meet our Japanese 4 class and their teacher, Tomomi Greenland.

My name is Sheree Adams and in the past 10 years I've been to Japan 5 times (I think) and am going for the 6th time in a few weeks. I go to Okinawa to study karate with my teacher who is now 83 years old. When I went to Japan last year I realized that I wanted to study, in earnest. I contacted CHICLE and they said that if we had 3 people it would be a scheduled class. Since there were 4 of us going to Japan together, the others thought they would benefit from lessons as well.

I've studied with teachers and friends for various amounts of time over the years, but have resisted what everyone has every said-that to understand and learn the language, you have to learn to read and write it. Since there are two phonetic alphabets and thousands of kanji (pictographs), I thought that was not even remotely possible. But within the first 6 week session, Tomomi had us reading and writing the first alphabet and well on our way through the second. It was amazing. I really like her style, of teaching and I feel that I have learned a lot. I'm still a long way from my goal but I hope to keep studying when I return from Okinawa.

Mary Margaret Graham, Sheree's partner, is an instructor in Durham and at the Carolina Pines Women's Dojo. They met in Okinawa as they both have the same teacher. She is about to take her 5th trip to Okinawa and has done some self study in Japanese.

I'm David Glenn, a graphic designer, a musician, and a karate practitioner. For decades, I've wanted to learn Japanese to help improve my understanding of karate. It's taken me all these years to finally get started. I think, doing this as a group has really been helpful. We can study outside of class and practice together. (That's a euphemistic way of saying that my friends tolerate my ignorance and try to help me keep up.)

One of the most enjoyable parts of the whole experience is seeing Tomomi Sensei once a week. The class is always so very pleasant. She works really hard with us. And while we're away, doing our homework, she's doing hers, putting together more material to help us learn. Domo arigato Sensei.

I'm Emily Wexler, a graphic designer in Durham who happens to be friends with some serious martial artists. They decided to take a Japanese language class in preparation for a trip to Okinawa and Japan. I thought it would be a fun way to spend time with them and use my brain in a different way. As the class progressed, I decided to join them on their trip to Japan, so next month we will all get to practice our Japanese together.

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From our 11/14/07 email. This week we'd like you to meet two longtime Spanish students, Joy Mermin and Meg Lawrence, and their teacher, Donato Fhunsu. Donato is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and only speaks some seven languages. He appeared in our offices about four years ago and proceeded to teach Spanish and French for us. He is completely fluent in both (and English and ...) and has lived in many countries. He's also a very qualified interpreter and translator but is very busy now studying for his doctorate in Comparative Literature at UNC-CH.

Joy and Meg are so dedicated that they come on Saturdays. Here are their stories.

"My name is Joy Mermin and I am one of 3 ESOL teachers at Haw River Elementary School in Alamance County. Our school has more than 250 students whose first language is Spanish. In addition to teaching the children, we also serve as liaisons and support for our children's families.

In 2001 I took a leave of absence from teaching kindergarten in the Chapel Hill -Carrboro Schools to earn my ESL add-on certification at UNC. That year I took two semesters of beginning Spanish at the university. When I returned to teaching the following year as an ESL teacher, I wanted to continue to work on my Spanish, but a regular university course was out of the question because of my schedule. That summer (2003) my friend, Meg, who also teaches ESL, suggested that we try a weeklong intensive course at CHICLE, and that's what we did. I enjoyed it immensely. The following year I tried one of CHICLE's evening courses, but that was exhausting after a long day of teaching and a substantial commute. Meg felt the same way. So, in 2005, the two of us decided to contact CHICLE to set up a tutorial on Saturdays where we could work together to continue to improve our Spanish.

Our Saturday tutorial class with Donato is one of the highlights of my week. The class itself is tremendous fun - we have free-wheeling conversations in Spanish about everything - philosophy, religion, literature, and, of course, because of our work, education. We laugh a lot. Sometimes we play games. I especially enjoy our role-playing. As a result of the class, my ability to converse with the families at my school in their first language has improved immensely. But even if I were not seeing practical benefits, I would continue to come to class. I love being able to finally really speak a second language. I love the way speaking a language opens a door to really being able to understand another culture.

Gaining the confidence to trust myself and to take risks-that's probably been the hardest thing I have had to learn, especially at the age of 58. I'm still working at it. Donato has been a tremendous help.

Meg writes "I found out about Chicle from the newspaper quite a while ago. I am studying Spanish to be able to communicate more easily with the parents of my students. I took some group classes at Chicle about 4 years ago and for the past 3 years Joy Mermin and I have been studying with Donato on Saturday mornings.

I took Spanish in high school and college about 30 years ago. I went to a
language school for two weeks in Cuernavaca, Mexico about 15 years ago. I have traveled to Mexico several times and once to Guatemala with a group of students to work at a school for two weeks. I have also traveled to Australia and Europe.

We laugh a lot in class especially when trying to express ourselves.I find verb tenses (especially the subjunctive) have been the hardest for me.

I have taught English Language Learners at Seawell Elementary School in Chapel Hill/Carrboro for the past nine years. Taking Spanish classes and trying to use it with my student's parents continually helps me evaluate my own teaching."

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From our 12/5/07 email. Now meet Anna Freeman. Anna's a nurse at UNC hospitals in pediatrics and has been taking several French courses at CHICLE for a year now. Anna is a very motivated and diligent student. And it has paid off! Anna's leaving on January 3rd for a nine month stint in the Congo with Doctors without Borders, having passed their French test with flying colors. We will miss Anna and we wish her well. We'll ask her to give one of our Sunday talks after she returns and recovers from the inevitable culture shock.

Anna writes: My name is Anna Freeman and I have been studying French at CHICLE for the past year. I grew up in Chapel Hill, studying French in elementary, middle, and high school. When I went away to college in New Mexico, I stopped taking French class and instead focused on my nursing degree.

After graduating from nursing school, I moved back to Chapel Hill to start work at UNC Hospital. I've been a pediatric nurse there for three years. Working at the hospital has been very rewarding, but I have always wanted to work internationally. In 2006, I decided to start preparing to do so.

I wanted to work with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders. I learned that most of their work is focused in French-speaking Africa. I remembered some of the French that I had learned as a kid, but I definitely needed some review! I started taking conversation and grammar classes with Bernard Luscans at CHICLE in December 2006.

In the past year, my French skills have improved greatly. Bernard's classes have been both challenging and fun. I feel like I have not only retained the foundation that I established when I was younger but have improved on top of that. We discuss a variety of interesting and relevant topics in our conversation class and I find myself bringing up the same subjects with my friends afterward. Everyone is always surprised that such thought-provoking issues have come up in class. My grammar class has been incredibly helpful and is also fun. I look forward to it every week because my classmates and Bernard make it so enjoyable. I will miss the class, my classmates, and our parties when I leave.

I start work with Doctors Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January and I now feel prepared to work in a French-speaking country. I am confident that everything I have learned at CHICLE will be useful to me during my experience abroad.

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From our 1/30/08 email. My name is Steve Gordon. I work as a public defender in federal court, and I represent many clients who speak only Spanish. I'm from Southern California, and I studied Spanish beginning in elementary school and continued studying it through college. I also had the opportunity, when I was 13 and again when I was 17, to spend the summer in Costa Rica, back when hardly anyone in the U.S. had heard of it.

After college, I didn't touch Spanish again for about 25 years. Shortly after taking on my current job, I was in a local jail waiting to see one of my clients, and I heard some official speaking bad Spanish in a gruff voice to one of the inmates, and addressing that person with tu. That one moment revived my interest in learning Spanish. I began my re-introduction by watching telenovelas, and so I learned the correct meaning of "embarazada" early on.

I don't remember when I began taking classes at CHICLE, nor do I remember how I found out about it in the first place, but I've been coming regularly for several years. I've taken a wide range of Spanish classes here-studying film, literature and writing, among others. In particular, I'm an unapologetic Ruy Burgos groupie, taking his classes the way Deadheads followed the band, and I'm currently studying translation with him.

In 2004, I spent a month at the Academia in San Miguel. In January 2005, I went to Honduras for ten days to serve as a volunteer interpreter in a health clinic, and I've returned to Honduras each year since then. In 2003, my wife and I toured Spain. The photo is from Pamplona, but if I could live anywhere in the world, I'd pick Madrid in a heartbeat.

P.S. Steve comes to class from Raleigh!

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From our 3/5/08 email. This month we'd like you to meet Michelle Carey, one of CHICLE's German language students.

"I first started taking German classes at CHICLE about 9 months ago. My partner Wolfgang is German and I want to be able to freely communicate with his family and friends. A year ago, I spent a vacation in Germany and found myself very frustrated at not being able to get to know people better or speak for myself without having Wolfgang translate. This experience really spurred me on to do something about it. I enjoy the CHICLE way of teaching. They place emphasis on oral and aural skills which are very important objectives for me. I never really liked language classes in high school but my experience at CHICLE has really changed my attitude.

On a personal note, I am originally from Galway City on the west coast of Ireland. After completing my PhD in Pharmacology in 2000, I moved to North Carolina for a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park. I spent almost seven years there performing lung research. In July 2007, I left the bench for a career as a science writer and am thoroughly enjoying the new challenge. Wolfgang and I live in lovely Chapel Hill and share our home with our two parrots Lily and Alex."

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From our 3/12/08 email. A few months ago we introduced you to Anna Freeman, who was about to use her CHICLE-learned French working with Doctors without Borders in the Eastern Congo. Today we'd like to share a little of her latest email report.

"Every morning at the hospital, I start with a tour of each of my services that I'm in charge of - Pédiatrics, Incubator Room (I forget how to say that in English--where premature babies go??), Intensive Care, Internal Medicine, ER, Isolation, and the Hygiene department. In Isolation, I keep track of the incoming patients with TB, Cholera, and measles. Right now, we don't have a lot of cholera, but quite a few cases of TB (often associated with HIV) and in the last month, we've had 22 cases of measles.

I spend some time everyday with Aimé, the supervisor of housekeeping, who is my favorite person in all of Congo. He's very, very sweet and he assigned himself the job of teaching me Swahili and me the job of teaching him English. His English is coming along a lot better than my Swahili.

There are two displaced persons camps in Kiwanja/Rutshuru, so hundreds of families walked from the area that was attacked into this area, carrying all of their possessions on their backs. It was incredible to see. So sad. At one point on the Saturday after the attacks, when the people were all still coming into town, a man knocked on our door because his girlfriend had gone into labor on top of a truck that was transporting a bunch of people to the camps that had stopped in front of our base. I took them to the hospital with one of our drivers, and THANK GOD she didn't have her baby in the car!! It was nuts-it was pouring rain, Joseph, the driver, was trying to drive quickly over the terrible roads and in between the zillions of goats who run around all over the place, and me, trying to ask this poor girl who just walked 20 k at nine months pregnant in French "has your water broken??" and having her respond by saying something that I couldn't understand in Swahili. But like I said, we got to the hospital before a baby popped out, and I am very; very happy to say that I did not deliver a baby in an MSF car in Congo. :)

Anyway, as tiring as the work is here, I am very much enjoying it and I love the Congolese people. Everyone is incredibly kind, and I'm getting used to being a total oddity to the kids here. Every time we go anywhere, on foot or in the car, you can hear all the kids on the side of the road yelling "Mzungu! Mzungu!"- white person, white person!! I've had many children run up to me and touch my arm or my hair and then run wildly away and I've also had many children see me coming and burst into tears and hide behind their moms. They are so damn cute, so I don't mind being their freak show."

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From our 4/9/08 email. We are happy to introduce you to Nina Lorch, an advanced Spanish student. She is as warm and friendly as she looks.

"My grandmother spoke at least seven languages, and I believe I inherited my affinity for learning languages from her. I grew up in Miami, and studied Spanish all through my school years. I switched to German for a year in college as a nod to my heritage (my father was from Germany; my mother is from Austria). Wanderlust landed me in Europe for several years, where I worked as a nanny in Greece, a volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel and a barmaid in Cornwall, and learned enough Greek, Hebrew, and West Country English (What'll ye have, me fruit?) to get by. I did eventually get an undergraduate degree in Language and Linguistics from Florida Atlantic University.

Peace Corps brought me to francophone Africa to work as a teacher in an idyllic town in Southwestern Chad, until all the foreigners in the country were evacuated because of raging civil war. Reassignment to Niger provided a more peaceful venue in which to teach English as a Foreign Language and train teachers. After my stint was up, I lived in London and taught English to foreign doctors who had to pass a test before they could do postdocs in British hospitals.

At the behest of my sister Claire, I came to Chapel Hill in 1984 to take care of my new niece Hannah, and knew I had found a home when I met and eventually married Andy, the "boy" next door. I also landed a job in Raleigh with a farmworker organization, driving a big Chevy van with a cabover, outfitted as a mobile classroom with fold down seats and desks. With a Haitian musician as my partner, I drove to labor camps in eastern North Carolina, at night, after the workers came in from the fields, to teach English and sing.

Fast forward to the present! (Finally!) I went to grad school in Speech and Hearing Sciences at UNC, and for the past 16 years I've been a Speech Language Pathologist, working in a small residential treatment center for children with severe emotional and behavioral disorders in Durham. I am also typically the go-to person when we have Latino parents who don't speak English, and when I realized how rusty my Spanish had become, I contacted CHICLE, and they arranged for me to study at the Academia Hispano Americana in San Miguel de Allende, where I had a fabulous time - I loved the classes, the town, and the family I stayed with. Since my return from San Miguel, I've been a pretty steady consumer of Spanish language classes at CHICLE. I've taken private lessons, classes on film and literature and writing and translation, and even some French conversation classes. The teachers have all been excellent.

Wittgenstein wrote: "Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt" which means something like "the limits of my language are the limits of my world". I'm grateful to CHICLE for allowing me to continue to expand those limits!"

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From our 4/30/08 email. We've said before how much fun it is to work at CHICLE. One of the main reasons is that we attract many wonderful and interesting students. Among the nicest are Ronaldo and Teresa Lessa, English students extraordinaire. They write:

"We are from Brazil, and have been here in North Carolina since December 2006. We live with our two sons, Rafael and Gui, in Durham and we are enjoying a lot our time in US. We are a radiologists. Ronaldo is performing a research fellowship in neuroradiology at Duke until June, and Teresa spent one year performing a research fellowship in abdominal imaging at Duke too. Now, she is spending her time at UNC in abdominal Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

English is very important for us and, because of that, we have always studied before. However, our current experience at CHICLE is being so nice and rich. We are enjoying the kind of class and also our teacher. After we found CHICLE, in June 2007, our English looks much better and we can observe it in our work and our social relationships. Unfortunately, we are going back to Brazil next July, but we will miss our CHICLE English class."

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From our 4/30/08 email. Our June friend is Diane Bertsch, who is working towards trilinguality. (I looked it up and it is a word.) We've been knowing Diane almost since we opened. She is wonderful and seeing her every week reminds us why we're here.

"While growing up in small-town Indiana I somehow got it into myhead that I was going to study Spanish and be a simultaneous interpreter at the U.N.! Of course, since I had never met a foreigner nor traveled outside the Midwest, I was blissfully unaware that one can only do simultaneous interpreting if you have grown up bilingual. One dream down.

Undaunted, I studied Spanish in high school and then took my first trip outside the U.S. to study five weeks in northern Mexico. I was hooked. But still pretty darn dumb... I thought I would go to college and become fluent in many languages - ha! Eventually I settled back with Spanish and spent a semester in Colombia. After college I worked in libraries with federally-funded programs to serve the Spanish-speaking, in Chicago and Kalamazoo, Michigan.

After a long break of not using my Spanish I discovered to my shock that I had lost the ability to speak, and began the slow process of regaining what I had once had. I first found a private tutor and then began studying at CHICLE almost ten years ago. For many years now I have tried to maintain my Spanish by taking conversation and film classes, and by reading.

About four years ago I decided to travel to Italy and took several beginning Italian classes at CHICLE. I never intended to pursue Italian forever but I discovered I love that language too, and so I now take the Italian conversation class. I haven't decided if studying both languages at the same time enhances my abilities or messes me up. All I know is the night my Spanish instructor decided to practice his Italian with me, I was one confused student!

Now I know that studying languages is one of my passions in life, along with traveling. I am grateful CHICLE is here to indulge me. I may be hanging around CHICLE the rest of my life. Gracias y grazie!"

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About CHICLE

Directions to CHICLE

How we teach

Please call us at (919) 933-0398 or e-mail us if you want more information.