introduction to language learning 5

 

Dear Erick,

        Hello, how have you been? I said it last time that today I will talk about my second experience in learning Spanish. Last time I mentioned that I have learned Spanish in high school but did not learn a lot. This time I will share with you my fantastic Spanish teacher in college. I took a two-semesters Spanish class when I start college, and I really learn a lot from this class. He teaches Spanish in a very systematic way. First, he teaches Spanish letters and their pronunciation. In his class, students are required to repeat the word many times, and I think it’s very useful for me because I can better memorize the word if I say it out loud. I once saw an article about memorizing things, and it said that by saying out loud the word, you can solidify the words in your brain's long-term memory. Therefore, I think it’s quite important for teachers to help students say the word.

(article: Need to Remember Something? Say It Out Loud https://www.newsweek.com/need-remember-something-say-it-out-loud-730652)

        Next, he teaches basic daily conversation and self-introduction. However, when he’s teaching one topic, he also talks about lots of relating things. For example, he does not just talk about introducing parents, he also teaches us how to say “I love you” to our parents. Moreover, he teaches us how to sing Spanish songs! I really love this way of teaching. I think students can better engage in the class with music. The teacher will play the music first and then he’ll explain the lyrics and teaches us the vocabulary. I think through music, we can really memorize the words and students can have a sense of achievement or fulfillment when they can sing a Spanish song.

        He also teaches us some Latin American food and culture. I think when learning a language, it’s very important to know the culture. After all, the purpose of learning a language is to communicate, and if we don’t understand the culture, there will still be lots of problems while communicating. I really love how the teacher brings Latin American culture to the class; he makes me fall in love with the language and I really want to learn more about it.

        Moreover, he teaches us a lot of local use of the language. When we first learn English, our teacher will teach us to respond to “how are you?” by saying “I am fine thank you, and you?” However, no native speaker actually responds that way. My Spanish teacher teaches us some responses that a native speaker actually uses and he also shows us some clips about the real-life conversation. He also recommends some famous Spanish shows and encourages us to watch them to improve our listening. Also, he teaches us some Spanish dirty words. Of course, he is not encouraging us to use it to insult someone, he is teaching these dirty words to help us know when someone is saying some bad words to us. I think it’s very interesting since I have never met a teacher who would teach students dirty words. Overall, he is a very good teacher and he really helps me a lot in learning Spanish.