Whew, ¡estoy cansado! That means that I am tired. After two days of spanish school I am coming to realize that learning this language may be one of the most difficult things I ever attempt. More on that later.
I finally decided on Los Amigos del Sol, a smaller school east of the zocolo. Registration and a placement exam preceded the commencement of my first class, verbs, from 9:00 to 10:30. Now, from my understanding, there are a number of different theories about teaching spanish. I´m sure every branch of education has labored to find the most effective means of transmitting information to students. At first I was slightly wary of the¨”immersion” method and you can probably guess why. Learning from teachers who only speak spanish in class sounds daunting and that was exactly my experience. By the end of the first hour my head was already swimming and I was yawning, on the border of a headache. Aiy. Not only was it difficult to understand the teacher, I was at a loss for vocabulary and grammatical understanding on my own end. Add the grammatical terms in spanish on top of that and by the end of class I was cooked.
My next two classes were more of the same. Grammar began deceptively easy enough with some flash cards and common vocabulary words. When I was unable to understand one of the exceptions to a particular grammatical rule and the teacher seemed unable to explain I sank even lower. Finally the hour of conversational class hammered home the realization that I could barely speak in the present tense, let alone employ some of the more subtle tenses of past and present that I had taken for granted. Aiy.
