Advanced Spanish students travel to Monterey

Students slowly wandered around the fields of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey on May 8, in awe of the brilliant colors representing each culture, the aromas from the various food stands and the mesmerizing ocean behind the crowd of soldiers, students and teachers.

The DLIFLC is the premier language institution in the world and one of the most demanding military schools in the U.S., boasting classes in 23 languages.

About 40 of Spanish teacher Arnaldo Rodriguex’s advanced classes were invited to the DLIFLC Language Day on May 8, in addition to several thousand other high school language students

The event was organized by the DLIFLC students and faculty, who wanted to share their passion for languages with the younger students. The high school students were able to witness a full day of demonstrations in different foreign languages and cultural activities with vendors who offered samples of international cuisine.

Rodriguex hoped that this experience would ignite his students’ interests in further language studies.

“The students [were exposed] to different languages and the importance of different languages,” he said.

The day also served as a much-appreciated break from AP testing and an eye-opening experience.

“Language Day was a great way to experience firsthand the cultures that we only get to read about in textbooks and to see the similarities and differences between them,” AP Spanish student senior Alyssa Jones said.

Jones said that her favorite memory from the day was a calligraphy room, where the soldiers wrote students’ names in various languages including Korean, Arabic and Japanese.

Language Day also offered classes in the various languages, such as a German class where the students learned the German alphabet and how to say simple everyday phrases. There were also various cultural performances, such as a traditional Chinese dragon dance, an Indian folk dance and a Japanese martial arts demonstration.

As a whole, students were impressed with the soldiers’ willingness to share their love for languages by putting on such a successful event.

“It was truly an amazing experience to see so many people who do so much for our country take time to host this language day for the benefit of elementary, middle and high school students,” Jones said.