Learning Spanish so far..

So I have officially completed 2 days s of Spanish class. Our placement test was my first day on CPI’s campus, it included: a 5idh page list of statements where we would have to cogitate the verbs. I had remembered a few weird grammar rules from high school so it wasn’t awful. Justin (CPI instructor) told us not to guess because it would mess up our placement so I left a lot of blank spots. After that we had an interview. The interviewer spoke only in Spanish and I was like a deer in headlights. Which was probably a good thing because if I was placed any higher I would have been so lost. I was placed in Group 2 of 4. We reviewed forms (yo, el, ello, nosotros, etc) and verbs on day 1.  We were all so excited to get going on class I was remembering some words and things way faster than I expected. I left class feeling pretty proud. My brain was very tired. I was nice to remember those things so quickly because seeing all the signs and recognizing words but not remembering what they meant before class started very extremely frustrating to me.

Day two (today) was way harder for me. At one point it felt as if I had hit a wall and could not think any longer. We wrote a lot of sentences using new and old vocabulary; typically these sentences were based off a picture on a card that we pulled at random. I liked this exercise, we weren’t writing super long sentences at first and it was nice to get a refresher on how the sentence structure is. Then we moved on to reading (popcorn style) two paragraphs in Spanish, then picking out words we knew paired with ordering photos to ensure comprehension. Lastly we asked and answered questions, also in Spanish about what we had read. By the end of the classes I was feeling maxed out.  I think everyone was feeling that way because after our end of the day meeting it seemed, as people were getting a bit testy. Nothing dramatic or hateful you could just tell everyone was tired. I hope I can adjust to this class so it gets as fun as it was on day 1.

Here are my thoughts overall, I have noticed that I can read and verbally understand WAY more than what I can say or write. I think writing is harder for me then speaking. Some things in class that have helped me be successful are the pictures that went a long with the story we were reading; if I didn’t know the word it was a great tool. I will absolutely use this in my classroom with my future ELL’s. What is a good thing but not 100% effective is that our teacher basically does not speak in English to us. I love that it pushes us to use our skills and problem solve but there is a point where there is so much confusion a phrase or something in the students (myself in this case) is very much needed.  Experiencing this alone will make me remember to learn at least a few basic phrases for my students if they are learning English, especially those who are struggling.

Pictures from our school.