La Escuela de Espaniol

This morning brought about our first day of Spanish school in downtown Antigua. We have been divided into partners, and are learning on a basis of two students to one teacher, giving us a chance to get to speak the language more than we would in a larger classroom setting. We had five long hours of straight Spanish lessons, going over simple conversations, introductions, some vocab and beginning some verb conjugations. Communicating with someone who hardly speaks English when you are only able to speak a small amount of Spanish can make for quite an interesting experience. I have had three years of Spanish classes prior to this, in high school, but because most of that was written work rather than verbal work, I have found I can understand more of what is said, but it sometimes takes me a few moments to recall how to respond, even though I know how to.

Between reviewing an abundance of Spanish words, laughing at our mistakes and misunderstandings, and sharing about our lives we had a lot of fun and got a chance to learn more about our partners, our teachers and even ourselves. I played translator between my teacher and my partner for a bit, which was quite entertaining, as my partner couldn't always understand what we were discussing. Getting a chance to dive into the language in this way has already been a great and beneficial experience for me, as I have found that I lack confidence in my ability to speak Spanish, and I hesitate and second guess myself even when I know how I am supposed to respond in conversation. Being able to work in such a small group gives us the chance to speak more, and for the teacher to focus on making sure we're picking up the language and understanding what we are being taught.

After the school day, a lot of laughs and a lot of relationship jokes, we headed out to wander around Antigua and explore the market places and see what they had to offer. During this time, we had several interesting encounters with the locals, ranging from some guys trying to pick up some of the girls to some of the group getting hustled on the bus when they gave their bus money to a man they thought was collecting bus fares, who turned out to only be collecting donations. Wandering around the mercados (markets) proved to be interesting, as everyone was trying to get us to buy from their shop, and the competition between shops made it fairly easy to barter down prices.

Tomorrow we will be reviewing what we went over in class today and then we will continue on in our studies, learning more difficult aspects of the language and it's uses everyday. Continued prayer for patience, and understanding within the classroom would be greatly appreciated, as well as prayer for us to be able to pick up the language with relative ease, and to learn to speak the language with confidence.