Spanish Language Learning

Now that Spanish class is over, I am really proud of what we all accomplished. I find it almost humorous how different types of situations can really show off what we have learned. At home with my momma Tica I could put together paragraphs, of course they and a few mistakes, but the need to communicate makes the brain work in ways that really surprise me. I enjoyed having the crutch of my Tico brothers there to translate when needed because it was easier but really getting to use what we worked so hard in class on was a great feeling. I’m so afraid of moving home and “don’t use it you lose it” setting in. I don’t want my skills to backtrack. I have already asked a friend of mine to practice with me, I’m going to rope my brothers into using Spanish when I’m around since Kyle is fluent and my grandmother has talked about us taking a Spanish class at the local community college together.

Thinking back to class the things that worked for me the best was just having a conversation, our teacher was absolutely wonderful and we were given at least an hour to talk about whatever we wanted- as long as it was Spanish. She would give us the words we needed to say when we didn’t have the necessary vocabulary and ask us a lot of questions. I think this was most helpful to me because we talked about things we cared about. Mostly focusing on families, pets, relationships, friends, favorite shows and food. Simple thing yes but our teacher would remember and use those facts later and we were able to learn more about each other and build our connections as a group. It was always comforting to talk about these things because we knew them so well and it made us miss home less. The one thing that didn’t work for me was the drilling or long repetition of grammar rules. These skills are necessary but they are so much more effective, learning wise, when there is context and real life examples. Being in this Spanish class for 60 hours in 3 weeks have absolutely burned those teaching methods into my brain. If nothing else that alone will be utilized the most with my future ESL students.