This is one advantage to learning by immersion – time away from studies yet still learning!
We are in class 4 hours daily, Monday – Friday; that’s equivalent to a 20-hour class load! We have one hour of lenguaje (language and vocabulary), one hour of fonética (learning how to pronounce words and phrases), and 2 hours of gramática (learning the grammar). Add one an hour or so of homework every night and it’s not hard to see how a trimester here is worth about two years of studying Spanish in a school in the US.
The teachers here don’t like to give much homework over the weekend; they say that the brain itself needs time to “rest,” so we went to the park today. Since all the street and store signs are in Spanish, and the vendors and people are all speaking Spanish, we are still learning.
But we are learning something else, also: simplicity. There are many parks here, and the families take advantage of them… with simple things. They fly kites, they play with soap bubbles, they sit and talk, they play on playground equipment, and they use cardboard to slide down hills.
You don’t see many kids with Nintendos, GameBoys, or other electronic diversions… they read, they play with toys that don’t need batteries, and they get along just fine.
Yep, we’re learning a lot more than how to speak Spanish.
We are in class 4 hours daily, Monday – Friday; that’s equivalent to a 20-hour class load! We have one hour of lenguaje (language and vocabulary), one hour of fonética (learning how to pronounce words and phrases), and 2 hours of gramática (learning the grammar). Add one an hour or so of homework every night and it’s not hard to see how a trimester here is worth about two years of studying Spanish in a school in the US.
The teachers here don’t like to give much homework over the weekend; they say that the brain itself needs time to “rest,” so we went to the park today. Since all the street and store signs are in Spanish, and the vendors and people are all speaking Spanish, we are still learning.
But we are learning something else, also: simplicity. There are many parks here, and the families take advantage of them… with simple things. They fly kites, they play with soap bubbles, they sit and talk, they play on playground equipment, and they use cardboard to slide down hills.
You don’t see many kids with Nintendos, GameBoys, or other electronic diversions… they read, they play with toys that don’t need batteries, and they get along just fine.
Yep, we’re learning a lot more than how to speak Spanish.
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