Thoughts about learning Spanish

I have finished my first week of Spanish language lessons! It was difficult. The approach of this school is to throw you in the deep end head first. They take a rather traditional approach with teaching you grammar first, focusing primarily on how to conjugate verbs. And they do it all IN SPANISH!!!! SOLAMENTE!!! (That is, "only!") For a beginner this is extremely difficult. It was only on the third day that our teacher began to help us build some vocabulary. Philip, the other student, had an extremely difficult time with this approach. Partly because it did not meet his expectations. He was hoping to be able to begin speaking in simple phrases with local service people, e.g. the taxi driver, the waiter, the store clerk, etc. Finally, we had a bit of a rebellion on Wednesday and share our expectations with the teacher in English, so she shifted the approach a bit. She began spending half of each morning asking us to engage in building dialogues, e.g. with each other, then with shop clerks, etc. This was not really helpful in my mind because again, we don't have the vocabulary, so we have to sit and search the dictionary to find the words. I hate to act like an expert (especially when I am not in this area [nor in most areas, for that matter]) but I liked the approach of the language discs which Dianne purchased for me last Christmas. Their approach is that the best way to learn a language is like a child. First you learn simple phrases and nouns. Just as we teach children, who go around asking "What is that" (although usually more simply, including at the youngest age just pointing and grunting) and we say what it is. Eventually they start to create requests and we add verbs to their vocabulary, and then conjunctions, and adjectives, and adverbs, and verb tense, etc. Now I realize all this takes several years (and in fact, we continue to learn even our mother tongue all our life. I am still learning new words in English all the time and I really didn't become very proficient in grammar until the English teachers in my second church began to gently correct my errors.) But, the same approach, intensified, with adults, should not take years, but could probably work in months, if not weeks. Again, I am no expert.

So, I have developed my own plan. I realize now I need to build my vocabulary and I am going to work at that. Although, I have not had a chance to this weekend, but maybe tonight, after the futbol match (after all, there are priorities in life, and in Buenos Aires, the priority for Sunday is futbol!!) I also need to practice (I mean write out, for in writing my memory solidifies better) conjugating different verbs so I begin to learn which are the regular and which the irregular and begin to remember the different ways to conjugate. At the same time I do that I can continue building vocabulary as I make sure I know what the verb actually means! Finally, I want to write out the simple phrases which I need, again writing helps me memorize. In other words, I think I have realized that I may need to treat my homework time as my learning time and my class time as my practice time. It may seem a bit backward, but that may be an approach that will work for me and actually help me learn the language.

Anyway, the pictures above are of mi profesora, Ana Lema; of me with Ana; and of my co-student, Philip with Ana.