Losing my voice, finding my purpose
How being bilingual helped me survive a week of total silence.
By Erin Hunkemoeller
As a language teacher and tour guide, I use my voice … a lot. I rely on it to survive. Verbal communication is so much a part of who I am, and to be able to do it in two different languages is amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I may have gotten too excited about it and overused it—to the point where I damaged my vocal cords.
I will never forget the day my doctor said, “The week after school is out, you must go on complete vocal rest for seven days.”
Seven days?! Seven days of not being able to speak or produce any sound at all? What am I going to do? I am a language teacher who has lost her voice! Wow. Powerful.
If I didn’t take care of it then, I could have lost my voice forever.
But I followed his orders. What else was I supposed to do? If I didn’t take care of it then, I could have lost my voice forever.
Let me tell you: that was a really tough week. I felt isolated, restrained, helpless, and like a burden at times. I mostly stayed locked away at home just to avoid the effort it would take to communicate. I still had to go out into the world at least a little. And when I did, I made some fascinating discoveries.
The first was that some people, when faced with a challenge that isn’t easy (like a language barrier), don’t know how to respond.
Some people were polite and patient and let me write down whatever I needed to say, and they would respond verbally. Others weren’t quite sure what to do. Perhaps part of their brain was sympathizing with me, or just very confused. It was as if they tried to become like me as a means of sympathizing with me and forgot their words in the process. They would act things out in charades, even though my hearing was totally fine.
I also noticed something fascinating about the language in my own brain. You see, when I was trying to communicate and I wanted to speak faster than writing would allow, my brain would search for alternate ways to make it possible. If I couldn’t respond aloud in English, my brain tried to compensate and use its backup language. I noticed that every time I got flustered trying to convey meaning, I’d experience a secondary flood of thoughts in Spanish. How cool!
I turned to what I had been taught to do when learning a second language: negotiate meaning through any other means possible.
My brain didn’t even realize that English wasn’t the problem — it was just trying to get my message out any way it knew how, and it thought Spanish was a good alternative because I’d spent so many years studying it. But alas, it still wasn’t enough, so I turned to what I had been taught to do when learning a second language: negotiate meaning through any other means possible.
When two people are trying to communicate but don’t speak the same language, there are other ways they can express themselves, like using charades, facial expressions and pointing. I got really good at this during my week of silence, and I am sure it would have been a lot tougher had I not already been through the process of learning a second language. When I teach my students, I use a series of gestures and expressions to help them understand and find alternative ways to communicate, but this time, it became my whole world, and I had to rely on it for a week.
The experience of being a language teacher who lost her voice put several things into perspective for me. Two of the huge takeaways I have are my gratitude for being able to speak another language, and the desire to see a greater emphasis on second language learning. I was put right back into that place of not being able to communicate, but having been there before, I was able to decipher and express meaning much more easily than if I had only ever used my first language.
This experience will stay with me and guide me as I continue to teach my students, and it will constantly remind me of the great advantage I have: the ability to communicate in more ways than one. It is my goal to spread that desire to others, as it has not only taught me patience and acceptance, but also just how important your voice is—in every language.
Bilingualism has many proven benefits — you can read about some of them in Babbel Magazine. You can also try a free lesson in the language of your choice here.
