how things are going
Well, I've finally given into the pressure and am now reading "Crepúsculo", or "Twilight," as we English speakers know it. Thanks to Cristina, one of the other teachers at school. We met up on Saturday to hang out, walk around Madrid a bit and talk. We were talking about books, and she said she'd lend me "Crepúsculo".
Normally I prefer not to read books in Spanish if they were originally in English- I figure it's best if you can read in the original language the book was written in. But I'm having trouble finding books I'm interested in that are originally in Spanish. If any of you have recommendations, I'm open! Still, since Cristina lent me "Crepúsculo" I'm enjoying it anyway. Now in addition to improving my Spanish reading, I will know what all the hype is about.
Other than that, life is pretty good. I spent this weekend just hanging out in Madrid. On Friday night I partied like a Spaniard, albeit with my English-speaking buddies... though we did manage to start talking with some Spaniards in the last bar we hung out with. It was sort of a spontaneous intercambio de idiomas. We stayed out late enough that I was able to catch the metro back home- the metro closes at 1:30 and opens at 6:00.
On Sunday Zita came over and cut my hair; in exchange for the haircut, I gave her a Spanish lesson. Zita is Slovakian and speaks English with a british accent, and she is working as an English teacher here in Madrid. She is picking up a lot of Spanish, between the Spanish roommates she has and the students she's teaching, so it makes it easier for me to teach her Spanish grammar- she already has a lot of vocabulary. It was fun for me to teach a clase particular of Spanish instead of English-- it's easier, in some ways, to teach a language that is not your native language, because you've learned the grammar structure consciously rather than instinctively- it's not enough to tell your students that something just "sounds right", after all!
Today while listening to the children speak, it was interesting for me to think about the lesson I had just taught Zita- one of the things we went over was adjectives- how they have to agree with the gender and number of the nouns they describe. For example:
la casa (the house) + rojo (red) = la casa roja
las chicas (the girls) + guapo (good-looking) = las chicas guapas
I listened to my six-year-olds doing this- they don't have to think "Oh, chicas is feminine plural, so I have to make guapo into guapas..." Instead, it's instinct for them. They don't even have to have heard it before- they figured it out subconsciously from hearing the adjective-noun agreement in other phrases.
I was reading about this in the first couple chapters of Stephen Pinker's book "The Language Instinct," last summer. So now that I'm here listening to little kids do what I had to study how to do... well, it's pretty amazing to observe. It says a lot about how amazing human minds are at developing language when we're so young. Something that adults have to study later on, kids do by instinct.
Today I had fun talking with Gloria, the music teacher. She was describing to me the amount of school in Spain you have to go through to teach music. It's a lot... probably more than in the US, even. I had fun chatting with both her and Cristina after we had lunch with the other teachers. It's so odd... this year, eating lunch with all the teachers together, it's a much more serious atmosphere than I'm used to with Spaniards. Probably because most of the teachers at this school are older and are not Andaluces!! ;) It's just so different from my experience last year- where the teachers were mostly young Andaluces. Well, Andaluces young AND old are always a lot of fun.
I get along well with Angel, the bilingual coordinator of the school, and also the main teacher I work with. We have a lot of fun teaching the six-year-olds English. We speak English most of the time, but I like that he'll speak Spanish to me sometimes so I can practice, especially when we're not in the classroom- the children aren't supposed to know that I speak Spanish, but I bet they'll figure it out at some point if they haven't already.
Halloween is coming up, and I've already bought stuff for my costume... I'm also preparing something special for the kids. But more on that later... I think I've written enough already!
Cheers!
Normally I prefer not to read books in Spanish if they were originally in English- I figure it's best if you can read in the original language the book was written in. But I'm having trouble finding books I'm interested in that are originally in Spanish. If any of you have recommendations, I'm open! Still, since Cristina lent me "Crepúsculo" I'm enjoying it anyway. Now in addition to improving my Spanish reading, I will know what all the hype is about.
Other than that, life is pretty good. I spent this weekend just hanging out in Madrid. On Friday night I partied like a Spaniard, albeit with my English-speaking buddies... though we did manage to start talking with some Spaniards in the last bar we hung out with. It was sort of a spontaneous intercambio de idiomas. We stayed out late enough that I was able to catch the metro back home- the metro closes at 1:30 and opens at 6:00.
On Sunday Zita came over and cut my hair; in exchange for the haircut, I gave her a Spanish lesson. Zita is Slovakian and speaks English with a british accent, and she is working as an English teacher here in Madrid. She is picking up a lot of Spanish, between the Spanish roommates she has and the students she's teaching, so it makes it easier for me to teach her Spanish grammar- she already has a lot of vocabulary. It was fun for me to teach a clase particular of Spanish instead of English-- it's easier, in some ways, to teach a language that is not your native language, because you've learned the grammar structure consciously rather than instinctively- it's not enough to tell your students that something just "sounds right", after all!
Today while listening to the children speak, it was interesting for me to think about the lesson I had just taught Zita- one of the things we went over was adjectives- how they have to agree with the gender and number of the nouns they describe. For example:
la casa (the house) + rojo (red) = la casa roja
las chicas (the girls) + guapo (good-looking) = las chicas guapas
I listened to my six-year-olds doing this- they don't have to think "Oh, chicas is feminine plural, so I have to make guapo into guapas..." Instead, it's instinct for them. They don't even have to have heard it before- they figured it out subconsciously from hearing the adjective-noun agreement in other phrases.
I was reading about this in the first couple chapters of Stephen Pinker's book "The Language Instinct," last summer. So now that I'm here listening to little kids do what I had to study how to do... well, it's pretty amazing to observe. It says a lot about how amazing human minds are at developing language when we're so young. Something that adults have to study later on, kids do by instinct.
Today I had fun talking with Gloria, the music teacher. She was describing to me the amount of school in Spain you have to go through to teach music. It's a lot... probably more than in the US, even. I had fun chatting with both her and Cristina after we had lunch with the other teachers. It's so odd... this year, eating lunch with all the teachers together, it's a much more serious atmosphere than I'm used to with Spaniards. Probably because most of the teachers at this school are older and are not Andaluces!! ;) It's just so different from my experience last year- where the teachers were mostly young Andaluces. Well, Andaluces young AND old are always a lot of fun.
I get along well with Angel, the bilingual coordinator of the school, and also the main teacher I work with. We have a lot of fun teaching the six-year-olds English. We speak English most of the time, but I like that he'll speak Spanish to me sometimes so I can practice, especially when we're not in the classroom- the children aren't supposed to know that I speak Spanish, but I bet they'll figure it out at some point if they haven't already.
Halloween is coming up, and I've already bought stuff for my costume... I'm also preparing something special for the kids. But more on that later... I think I've written enough already!
Cheers!