The 15 Minute Interview

As one of our first activities in Tortuguero we decided to hold an English class at night for adults that work in tourism. Two jungle guides had approached us and asked if we could provide a class of English. Two weeks later we had sufficiently advertised our class by putting signs in two of the local supermarkets and one restaurant as well as telling everyone we saw.

The class began on Thursday night and was to be held each Thursday, Friday and Saturday night from 6-8 p.m. These unusual times were picked because several of our students are taking night classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to finish 6 th grade.

On Saturday of the first week of classes we held ¨15 minute¨ interviews. Our goal was to gather a little information about work and family and to ask some basic questions in English to learn their level of English. As we had speculated before holding these interviews, it was difficult holding the interviews to 15 minutes. We were able to do the first two interviews together and the first interview went like a charm. And then there was the second interview.

The second interview was held with Antonio, but he goes by ¨Six, Six. ¨ Six Six is a 55-year-old boat captain. He is a medium size guy with an aged face that has been through many years of manual labor. You could tell by his eyes that he was quite excited about the class. The interview started out just like most that day as we quickly learned he could speak very little English. The next question was about his family. He began by telling us a little about his childhood and soon the story blossomed into a 65-minute life history. We had made dramatic improvement on our Spanish since arriving in Costa Rica , but it was quite difficult to follow the many twists and turns of the story that poured like a waterfall from our friend, Mr. Six Six.

We had begun to become accustomed to these long-winded conversations, as is very normal in Costa Rica . However, this one suddenly took a dramatic turn. As he talked, my wife and I had remained intensely focused on catching everything that was being said. However, as most know who have learned a second language, comprehension becomes much more difficult when words are spoken in rapid fire.

In these first few weeks in Tortuguero I was forced to pay special attention to facial features and non-verbal cues to aid in my comprehension of conversations. Suddenly, I noticed that his eyes were turning red and that tears were beginning to well up in his eyes. He was explaining his childhood and the difficulties he had encountered in school and at home. He was forced to quit school during 4 th grade and began working due to his family's financial difficulties. Suddenly he was crying. I looked over at Christy instinctively and noticed the bewildered look in her eyes. We both quickly turned our head back to Six Six and both had no clue what to do. Do we hug him? I didn't think you do things like hug 55 year old men unless there's a wedding or… Wait a minute. It looked like he may be perking up a bit. He was still sniffling but suddenly he was talking about his days as a fisherman. Yes, thanks to God! I could go back to saying ¨ si , si ¨ for each bit of information needed. In fact, it appeared that only a couple of words of encouragement would be required for someone to listen. Yes the cycle from happy to sad had returned back to happy and an hour and 15 minutes later we had completed the interview. He had just needed someone to listen. Maybe that's all they need, someone to listen.