Starting off the morning with another exciting rainforest/farm walk through El Trapiche coffee plantation made for a delightful middle of the week activity. The farm was beautiful (and as usual the view was as well), but to top off the variety of food plants, we also got to be a part of the fudge making process with chocolate, coffee, mint and coconut. So sweet and so delicious! El Trapiche is a coffee plantation that started years ago with a family wanted to make their own coffee and now have made a tourist business out of it. Excellent coffee, chocolate and people make for the perfect place to visit for anybody of any language or culture.
On top of this, I have noticed myself developing a wider spectrum of Spanish vocabulary and recognition of landmarks across town. I feel like I can walk around town, navigating on my own, and be okay. The people are very nice, the restaurants are very local and the hills keep anybody in shape all the time. Despite my daily family Zumba time, I have become much more adjusted to the family, school and tourist balance here in Monteverde. Communication with my familia tica has gotten easier day by day and Spanish class gets more challenging yet fun each day.
Whether it's memorizing Spanish numbers, drawing out my family tree in Spanish or trying to order a meal in complete Spanish is just the icing on the cake for an incredible immersion experience. I feel myself still sitting at the tip of the Speech Emergence stage, but it amazes me watching Costa Rican's who know perfect English and Spanish. How did they get there?
After observing the tour guide at El Trapiche talk in perfect English and Spanish, it made me wonder what allowed him to be so fluent in both. Is it because he is in the tourist industry? Has practice made perfect? An interesting inquiry for such a broad question allows me to explore strategies, management and ideas for my future global classroom.
Thursday:
Santa Elena school was beautiful in their offer to come and let us observe and teach in their school. To continue on with my observations of English development in the schools here, I was able to sit in on a 2nd grade English class and observe their lesson of the day. Today, the students were learning the parts of the house in English by cutting out, gluing and creating their own house. With that said, students continued to talk in Spanish except when saying keywords. For this activity keywords included, but were not limited to: window, house, door, scissors, glue, etc. Most students could say the basics, but others had some difficulty.
In addition to all of that, I noticed students had done a previous activity about shapes in English by coloring, drawing and labeling. Once again, many students could spell the basic shapes and correctly identify them, but others had noticeable difficulties. It is these situations that make me wonder how a non-fluent English speaking teacher can teach English to those who don't know any. Where do they develop any type of higher vocabulary or grammar skills? This is a question that I have always wondered about, even with students in America, and a question that will be extended into my future classroom.
To top the day off, group dance class made for an entertaining closing to the day. I think my Zumba family time every night helped me a little bit, but I will always need improvement dancing (bailar), especially with Latin American music, most especially salsa and meringue.
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