La tauromaquia or Why bullfighting is a great topic for language learning


As a teacher myself, I'm a difficult student. I have my own ideas and methods for language learning and I'm not easily convinced by the ways others teach and learn. The easiest way to scare me off is using a boring textbook. Yes, textbooks are important in language learning.They cover the most important topics of daily life and also all the basic grammar. But the problem is, that I only learn well when the topic is relevant to me. When going by car on holiday to another country, knowing how to talk to a doctor or a car repair shop, is very relevant to me, so I make sure that I learn about this topics right before the trip, but in my daily life in Germany, I don't need to know, how to call a tow service in any other language than German. That's why I prefer to learn vocabulary and expressions when they are relevant to me and not when I happen to reach lesson 8 in a textbook... Also, I don't like to learn grammar structures in a certain order, just because that's the progression in the textbook.

What's always relevant to me, is learning about the culture of other countries and about the languages themselves (etymology, idiomology etc.). And, I'm quite talkative and love to discuss controversial topics. So, luckily, my Spanish teacher José is very flexible and suggested that we focus on discussions for the upcoming classes and learn some interesting expressions and structures alongside. When he showed me a website with a long list of possible discussion topics, "bullfighting" immediately caught my eye and I requested to do that. Some of you might find it terrible and say "What's there to discuss? It's cruel. Period." But bear with me. It's a great topic for learning Spanish. Even though both, my teacher and me, are absolutely against bullfighting.

  1. No, matter, what your view on this matter is, it's part of Spanish culture and history and reflected in a lot of works of art all around the world, e.g. paintings by Goya and Picasso, several works of Ernest Hemingway, as well as movies by Pedro Almódovar among others. Actually, by its fans, it is regarded rather as an artform itself than a sport.
  2. As it is very controversial, it's an ideal topic to practise debates phrases, both for written essays as well as role plays, where one takes the pro and the other the contra position.
        
  3. There is an abundance of Spanish idioms connected to bullfighting. And some of them are even common in other languages. For example:
    coger al toro por los cuernos = to take the bull by the horns, den Stier bei den Hörnern packen
So, to prepare for the class, my teacher and I thought of some questions in advance, then I read several articles online about this topic as well as parts of an essay written by an aficionado (fan of bullfighting), made a mindmap with the main points regarding this topic and this way prepared a short oral presentation for the class. Then we had a conversational class, during which my teacher wrote down corrections and suggestions for phrasing things in a better way. It's been a lot of fun and I gained a lot of confidence in speaking. And if I ever meet an aficionado, I'm well prepared for a debate on the pros and cons of bullfighting. 

My teacher

José is the perfect Spanish teacher for serious intermediate and advanced students. On his webpage he offers great audio and video material as well lessons about grammar and expressions and a podcast. I'm already learning more than half a year with him and love his flexibility, creativity and the way he uses technology to teach. 
Podcast: itunes, stitcher, ivoox

The resources

Podcasts episodes about bullfighting and idioms about bullfighting:
Hoy Hablamos: Los toros, ¿tortura of cultura?, Expresiones en español con toro
SpanishPodcast.net: Coger el toro por los cuernos

 Spanish debate phrases:

The Music

Paso doble is the bullfight inspired music and dance. This video shows a lot of art work around the topic of bullfight.

The following videos have nothing to do with Spanish music, but the videos are inspired by bullfighting:

Madonna: Take a bow 
Alt J: Something good (a bit bloody)
It's funny. now when I watch the videos, I'm just like oh, yeah, that guy on a horse is a picadero. The matador's cap is the montera, the purple-yellow cloth is the capote, the red one is the muleta. I sure learnt some very specific vocabulary.  

Pharrell Williams: "Happy" people in Pamplona (only dancing people in the typical clothes for the festival San Fermín, no bulls)

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