When you are teaching, many people warn you not to talk about politics, religion or even football in class. Just stick to grammar and vocabulary. Play it safe and avoid any awkward moments, like finding out your student is secretly a fascist, Jehovah’s witness or a Real Madrid fan. This week, I decided to break this golden rule. I took my students out of their comfort zone and introduced them to the world of debating in a foreign language. I had a list of topics from a teaching book, some of which were more controversial than others. The choice of topic, I left up to the students. I wanted to see how open to discussion they really are. They could either choose the non-controversial topics, such as mobile phones, robots and video games or go for the more controversial ones such as gay marriage, bullfighting, religion in schools and the death penalty.
My students in Poland, well most of them, would have chosen the less controversial topics. In fact, when I taught conversation classes in Poland, I was told by the students to keep it uncontroversial. My Spanish students however, a little to my surprise, chose the more controversial topics. The Spanish, it seems, are not as closed as I thought they were. This all led to some rather interesting discussions. Spain is technically a Catholic country, but when it comes to gay marriage, adoption by single parents, and religion in schools, the Spaniards in my class had pretty liberal views. Liberal for a catholic that is. Gay marriage was legalized in Spain under the current President and I couldn’t find anyone who disagreed with that law.
The death penalty was a slightly more heated discussion. My students were generally split on this. I believe this can be put down to a combination of two things. Firstly, Spain’s experience of terrorism, in particular from ETA and secondly, the anger at the current sentencing laws in Spain which led to Iñaki de Juana Chaos, an ETA member responsible for the murder of 25 people, being released from prison after serving 21 years.
The most controversial topic however was bullfighting. For some, bullfighting is a proud Spanish tradition which defines part of being Spanish. For others, it’s a barbaric excuse for torturing an animal. Those who favoured bullfighting were strong in their opinions and put forward a number of reasons why they support it. This included the rather bizarre argument that were it not for bullfighting, this specific species of bull wouldn’t exist. Apparently the bulls used in bullfighting are bred spescifically for bullfighting. Those who were against bullfighting were resigned to the fact that it will continue to exist for the forseeable future. They knew they were in a minority and usually qualified their opposition to bullfighting by saying that although they personally didn’t like it they accept that others do and therefore they don’t support an all out ban. The truth is that as well as being a Spanish tradition, bullfighting is big business in Spain and no Spanish government, especially the current one, would risk such an unpopular policy.
So I have broken the golden rule and survived. Maybe I was lucky, I had a generally open minded bunch. No facists or Jehovahs witnesses. Just a few Real Madrid fans.
My students in Poland, well most of them, would have chosen the less controversial topics. In fact, when I taught conversation classes in Poland, I was told by the students to keep it uncontroversial. My Spanish students however, a little to my surprise, chose the more controversial topics. The Spanish, it seems, are not as closed as I thought they were. This all led to some rather interesting discussions. Spain is technically a Catholic country, but when it comes to gay marriage, adoption by single parents, and religion in schools, the Spaniards in my class had pretty liberal views. Liberal for a catholic that is. Gay marriage was legalized in Spain under the current President and I couldn’t find anyone who disagreed with that law.
The death penalty was a slightly more heated discussion. My students were generally split on this. I believe this can be put down to a combination of two things. Firstly, Spain’s experience of terrorism, in particular from ETA and secondly, the anger at the current sentencing laws in Spain which led to Iñaki de Juana Chaos, an ETA member responsible for the murder of 25 people, being released from prison after serving 21 years.
The most controversial topic however was bullfighting. For some, bullfighting is a proud Spanish tradition which defines part of being Spanish. For others, it’s a barbaric excuse for torturing an animal. Those who favoured bullfighting were strong in their opinions and put forward a number of reasons why they support it. This included the rather bizarre argument that were it not for bullfighting, this specific species of bull wouldn’t exist. Apparently the bulls used in bullfighting are bred spescifically for bullfighting. Those who were against bullfighting were resigned to the fact that it will continue to exist for the forseeable future. They knew they were in a minority and usually qualified their opposition to bullfighting by saying that although they personally didn’t like it they accept that others do and therefore they don’t support an all out ban. The truth is that as well as being a Spanish tradition, bullfighting is big business in Spain and no Spanish government, especially the current one, would risk such an unpopular policy.
So I have broken the golden rule and survived. Maybe I was lucky, I had a generally open minded bunch. No facists or Jehovahs witnesses. Just a few Real Madrid fans.
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