Hola!
I can't believe we are nearly done with week 2. Just 2 days more and then I'm going to go back to the beach, probably in Cadiz again. We cover a lot in just one day. This week, we've had grammar lessons, phonology lessons, and done our practice lessons each day. The students come from 10:30-1:30 for lessons in reading, writing, and basic conversation. I taught my basic lesson yesterday. Someone decided she should volunteer to go first and get it over with but then got really nervous! Oh well, overall it went well and my teacher was not overly hard on me when we did the feedback part.
It's funny because I was very intimidated to teach adults but they were so sweet! Most of our students are Spaniards but some are Russian. It was interesting to teach folks whose English is very limited but it was a lot of fun too. I enjoyed helping the students to learn and getting to know them. Tomorrow we get assigned students to give private lessons to, so we'll see how that goes. It should be fun to work with someone one on one. I hear that giving private lessons is the best way for Americans to find work here.
We're learning foreign languages each Friday so that we can understand what it is like for our students. I'm in the Swedish group since I already know Spanish. Joanna (one of our instructors) is Swedish so she teaches us her native language. It's really hard for me to pronounce but the actual language structure is not much different from English so far. Being a language geek, I love learning Swedish!
So grammar...ugh. We do grammar at 2:30 each day and it is getting harder and harder. I know my parts of speech pretty well so that part was a breeze. But now we're doing something called aspects as well as tenses and imperatives and...the list goes on. I know grammar in Spanish better than in English, or so it seems. Is that pathetic or what? It's tough to do grammar at 2:30 when we've already had 5.5 hours of school and are tired and hungry. Phonology seems a bit easier but I'm still nervous about it. During week 4 we have grammar and phonology exams. I'm terrible with tests so am a bit worried about those but trying to not worry too much. We only need 65% to pass which doesn't seem like that much.
One last thought-I know that around the world Americans are not so popular but I didn't think that would come into play with my classmates. It has. We are 3 Americans, 3 English, 1 Dutch, and 1 South African. I've tried to make friends with everyone and enjoy the chance to meet people from around the world. However a few of my classmates are prone to making rude and offensive comments about Americans. It's really getting on my nerves. I have heard about animosity towards Americans in Europe but didn't feel worried about it coming in. I know it's not personal but it is really frustrating.
That may be it for now. I've got lots of work to do and some errands to run. I'm looking forward to the beach this weekend. Cadiz is a bit cooler than Sevilla which is really nice because it's been about 95-100 here every day! I am finally used to the heat though and don't mind it so much. Hope it's sunny back in Seattle!
Cuidense,
Ashlita
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