What is Meditation? According to the dictionary, ‘to meditate’ means to focus one’s mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation. There exist different practices, such as mindfulness, mantra chanting, focusing the mind on a […]
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Meditation in Spanish Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed. I have talked extensively about the benefits of meditation for your language learning practice. Having a calm mind will result in a more efficient Spanish practice, but what if you combine meditation with Spanish at the […]
The linguistic patchwork of you “At home, I feel free to speak Arabic peppered with words in French and English, and everyone understands me. When I am in Spain, I can only speak Spanish so that people would understand me.” This statement and its many variants share a common sentiment […]
“I don’t remember the time when speaking didn’t make me anxious”, she mumbled, still trying to smile but unable to look me in the eye. “I feel you, sister”, I wanted to say, to help share her painful load and to show her that I’m proof of living with that […]
Identity is not fixed. It’s more a multifaceted, fluid, ever-changing looking glass through which we view the world. Yet one of the most profound filters we use to interpret reality remains unchanged throughout our lives. As a migrant who left her native country 20 years ago, I have spent as […]
I originally wrote this article on 17th September 2011. Back then, I believed that the main purpose of language was communication. Now, ten years later, after ten years of teaching and exploring languages, my vision has changed a lot. In fact, I disagree with what I wrote back then. So, […]
I recently sent a questionnaire to my audience, asking them about their Spanish struggles and what they wanted or needed more of to improve and progress in their Spanish journey. One of the questions I asked was how interested they were in a poetry course in Spanish to improve their […]
Journaling in my mother language led me to write poetry, an activity I loved but which I stopped doing because I was young and influenceable and I believed then that if I couldn’t write good poetry (like the wordsmiths I studied in college), then I should not write at all. […]
Authenticity is a human need, like the need for belonging or attachment. When we are kids or teens, our need to belong to a group, fit in, trumps our need to express ourselves, and be authentic. This means that instead of listening inwards to our body’s clues about how it […]