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My name is Margarita Camps, I was born in Ecuador (South America). Since I was a child, I’ve had the opportunity to be surrounded by people from different parts of the world. When I was about 5 years old, I started to study English at school. I’ve always been interested in languages and new cultures. I felt in love with the language and enjoyed to learn about grammar and different subjects such as literature and history. When I was about fourteen years old my family decided to move to United States. I started going to the local high school in a small town in California. Everything was different from my previous school. This was when I had my first experience with slang. I knew English from before so I thought I had a lot of knowledge and it was going to be easy to make new friends, but I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, it was very frustrating for me. What they were saying didn’t make any sense. Although, I knew the language very well, I couldn’t understand my classmates until I learned the meaning of these informal phrases. When learning slang in any language you need to be aware that the words are not literal and have different meanings: for example, “What’s up?”, it means “How are you?”. I remember looking at the sky and thinking What’s that about? None of my previous English teachers ever taught me how to use slang, or why it’s an important part of any language specially if you are moving to a new town or other country which native language is different than your own. Slangs refer to words and expressions that have a different meaning than the literal phrase. It’s a very informal and modern way of speaking. A common example is when you use the word “cool” to say that something is fabulous when “cool” really means “cold”. One of the most effective ways to learn and understand slang is to travel or watch movies and tv shows about teenagers, where you will listen many of these expressions and you can also practice them. In my opinion teaching slang is very important, especially when your students are planning to travel or study abroad. It helps them feel that they belong to the place, be familiar with their surroundings and understand the local people. Knowing how to use slang properly can also make the student experience more pleasant, improve their fluency while and feel more confident when speaking to others. This will definitely help them avoid any awkward situations while engaging in conversation with native speakers. If you don’t know how to use slang properly you can accidentally insult people without even noticing. I believe that If you want to become fluent in any language it’s necessary to have experience using these types of expressions and be able to mastered them. You can learn grammar and the rules of any language from books and different activities but it’s not the same as producing the language. The most fulfilling experience for most of the student is when they immerge themselves in the language and learn about its culture and local people.
