This past summer, Arizona Western College's own Academic Advisor and Spanish professor Antonio Carrillo immersed himself in the wonderful language of French.
Carrillo learned of the opportunity via e-mail from a language association he is a membership of. The Kathryn Davis Fellowship is a competitive scholarship for a large amount of money given to the recipient to study the language of their choice at a Vermont university.
Carrillo applied in January of 2013 and received word months after that he was to receive the scholarship. Only 100 scholarships are given yearly. And of those 100, 14 scholarship recipients attended the immersion group Carrillo was in.
After many years of having an "infatuation" with language Carrillo was being given an amazing opportunity to learn another language, making him trilingual. He took one semester of French and felt it was not enough, so he decided he would choose this language and immerse himself further in it.
"Americans have a love of language, but I feel everyone thinks there is something beautiful and romantic about French," Carrillo said. "I wanted to explore it. French is the second most popular language aside from Spanish."
French only
Humbled by both the opportunity and the experience, Carrillo spoke highly of the two-month course. During his second day on the campus, he and the other 299 students in his group were to sign a pledge that they all would speak only their target language for remaining time in the program.
Other groups studied different languages, such as Chinese, Hebrew, Portuguese, Arabic and Spanish. Each target group, however, was able to converse only with those in their own group.
All students attended formal training from 8 a.m--12 p.m., studying the grammar, literature and culture of their target language. The students in Carrillo's group bonded through frustration. Many of them had little knowledge of the language and had to communicate with the minimal words they knew along with descriptive hand movements.
In addition to the various classes they took, theirs instructor had moved onto the campus along with the students and had brought their families with them.
"I and many of the other students felt more comfortable talking with the little kids in French because, if we got something wrong, it wasn't too embarrassing," Carrillo said.
When they weren't in class, the students could be found watching French films, listening to French speakers, attending dances where French music played or going to Montreal, Canada, to practice their French with native speakers.
Keeping sharp
Overall, Carrillo is happy to have been given the opportunity to expand his knowledge and says he will continue to practice his French with anyone he can. Learning languages will always be a fascination of his, and he plans to learn Portuguese and other languages in the years to come.
"Language is important," Carrillo says emphatically. "Everyone should know at least a little bit of another language besides English because it's knowledge.
"I will always be trying to learn because, the older I get, the sharper I need to keep my brain. Kids your age and even adults my age -- we all need to try to learn and take advantage of the opportunities we have."
AWC is proud of one of our staff for being accepted to and completing this wonderful program. Although challenging, Carrillo is happy with his decision to immerse himself in the French language. FÈlicitations, M. Carrillo!
Photo courtesy of Antonio Carrillo
