New Spanish Classes

This morning we had class with Professor Powell and got to discuss a little bit of what we have learned so far on this trip. It's interesting to get to go around the room and hear about everyone''s individual experiences-- so much is going on! It's also interesting to compare our experiences as struggling learners with those of our students. I'm starting to realize why struggling learners do some of the things they do. It can be very frustrating to not understand the language or just not understand what's going on in general.

Reading comprehension at Los Llenos

I know I had a particularly trying day last week where I was ready to do anything but speak Spanish! In the morning we helped at Los Llenos with the lesson their teacher was doing- a reading comprehension assignment in Spanish- which was cool, but I didn't really feel that comfortable helping students with what I didn't understand fully. And a lot of the other girls know less Spanish than me, so I was trying to help them translate also. It was a really cool experience, and I really enjoyed getting to use the Spanish I've picked up on, but by the time we got to CPI for our 4 hours of Spanish class, I was beat. Our professor last week insisted that we only only only speak Spanish in class, so I found myself barely participating at all... my brain was fried. By the time break rolled around, I was ready to just be done! Sitting through the second half of class- the grammar portion felt almost like a form of torture, and I couldn't help but to think about the ESL kids who will sit in my future classroom feeling this way. As I was sitting there completely exhausted, in Spanish overload, and not understanding the grammar rules she was teaching at all, she called on me to answer a question which I apparently did completely wrong. It was so frustrating to sit there and try so hard to listen while not understanding a single word the teacher was saying, then get called on and lectured for doing what she was apparently saying not to do. I had absolutely no idea what was going on after that, so I pretty much tuned out-- and in that moment I completely understood why struggling learners space out or act up in class.
Thankfully today, we got our new Spanish instructor

Wild toucans outside CPI!

for the week who hasn't seen me struggle uncontrollably, and hopefully I can keep it that way! Our new instructor, Jose, was very interesting and shared a lot with us about Spanish in different regions of the world and answered our questions about why Costa Ricans don't use the informal tú form. He even showed us toucans out the window! Hopefully Spanish class will be a little better this week.