English and Biology Collide

With gusto, the group of ten Venezuelan marine biology researchers broke into the warm up song at the start of class. It happened to be the Beatles´ “Octopuses Garden”. As they learned the lyrics to Ringo Starr´s cephalopod-staring ditty, the researchers practiced their pronunciation, worked their listening comprehension, and simply had fun. These researchers participate in a weekly English workshop that I run at the Oceanographic Institute of Venezuela, located at the Universidad de Oriente (UDO) in Cumaná, Venezuela. The workshop is secondary to my main job at the university: I spend most of my time working with students in the Department of Modern Languages as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA). Much to my surprise, however, one of the most meaningful components of my job at the UDO has been my secondary project.

I could not have predicted this opportunity to work in the Oceanographic Institute during the days preceding my arrival in Venezuela, much less when I was finishing my university studies two years ago. As an undergraduate student, I studied ecology and environmental education. My college studies and English teaching did not have a strong relationship at face value, yet I applied for the ETA program to gain teaching experience in a university, experience the many facets of Venezuelan life, and improve my Spanish. I applied, won the grant, and serendipitously ended up at the UDO. Upon arrival, I immediately began to search for a secondary project related to ecology. This quest provided me with an early opportunity to see Venezuelans –savvy at social-networking– in action: an English teacher in the Modern Languages Department was about to get married; her fiancé had studied marine biology; the fiancé’s thesis advisor knew an ecotoxicology professor, Dr. Mairin Lemus, who was in search of an English teacher trained in the biological sciences. As this example illustrates, fortuitous social networks rule in Venezuela.

At our first meeting, Dr. Lemus described the research station that she directs, explained its pitfalls related to English, and voiced a proposition. The research station, titled El Centro de Investigaciones Ecológicas de Guayacán (CIEG), lies nestled in the small coastal town of Guayacán, a boat ride plus a one-hour car ride away. The workshop participants usually work from the CIEG and, logically, aim to publish the results of their research in academic journals. Even journals in Spanish require an English translation of the title and the abstract of each submitted article from researchers. All of the UDO biology researchers had received some level of English study. Currently, the biology department requires all students to study basic English, training them to read scientific works and arming them with fundamental biology vocabulary. Yet students are not prepared to write clear, grammatically correct scientific abstracts in English by the end of this rudimentary class. With this level of English training, the researchers translate the abstracts of their scientific papers before sending them off to academic journals. For a scientist who wants her work published, this is like a matzo ball that has fallen right into the lap; it is a mess. Dr. Lemus admitted that the grammatical errors of a poorly translated abstract are oft-cited grounds for rejecting a research paper. This is a serious problem for any researcher with a less than stellar command of written English, and thus a problem for the CIEG researchers, some of whom last studied English when they were in high school. Dr. Lemus wanted a remedy for the problem and asked me to lead a weekly English workshop for the ten researchers.

I would have been meshuga* had I said no; it has greatly enriched my experience in Cumaná.

Unexpectedly, the workshop participants exhibit an incredibly cogent desire to learn English, making my teaching experience enjoyable. The researchers´ reasons to learn English are urgent, concrete, and related to their respective areas of expertise that they each adore. I noted this quickly when we held the first workshop in a university classroom back in January, but it is most evident when I travel with them to hold the occasional class in Guayacán. The town faces the Caribbean ocean and is backed by arid mountains. The wind constantly sweeps through this place, where the town’s artisanal fishing-based economy lends itself to a rustic way of life. As I accompany the researchers outside, they exhibit the least of inhibitions and ask question after question: ¿Cómo se dice laboratorio de ambientes acuáticos? (How do you say aquatic environments laboratory?); ¿Comó se dice area de preparación de taxidermia? (How do you say taxidermy prep area?); ¿Cómo se dice campana? (How do you say fume hood?). Truth be told, my heart lies in the natural sciences, so I feel ecstatic at each of their questions.

Yet the “teacher” learns as much as the students – or even more. In college, my studies almost exclusively focused on terrestrial ecology. Marine biology was out of the picture. Now I find myself working with researchers whose professional lives focus on marine organisms, ranging from bivalves to sea birds to sea snails. Never having studied these topics, I learn a great deal talking to workshop participants and reading their papers. For example, one researcher’s work shows that the bivalve Emerita portoricensis is capable of accumulating heavy metals (such as mercury) from its surrounding environment without dying. Scientists can take samples of this mollusk to the laboratory and analyze the levels of contaminants in its somatic and reproductive tissues. In this case, E. portoricensis becomes an invaluable bio-indicator of industrial pollution in the marine environment. Forgive my digression, but it never hurts to learn new things, albeit in unanticipated ways. And on a personal level, my unexpected project with the Guayacán researchers elucidates this.


*meshugah: mad or idiotic (Yiddish)