My Spanish Adventure
Reflecting on the past whole week’s learning experience of Spanish, studying Spanish in Mexico as well as exploring a vast country of incredibly-diverse landscapes and rich historical and cultural traditions is really rewarding. This Study Abroad program in Mexico has offered a number of amazing destinations to explore—Mexico city, Guanajuato and Celaya, and has provided engaging Spanish language courses in well-known language school, a good opportunity to practice Spanish by living with local homestay and visiting local museum, market, and teaching in local schools, which have enabled me to be more exposed to Mexican culture and education.
Charming in its culture and with the heritage of millenary civilizations such as the Mexica, Maya, and Aztec, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, with a population of about 112 million inhabitants, and 90% people are very friendly, patient, and warm to help foreigners out and try and hold a conversation with us in Spanish, which for me is a great motivation to learn Spanish.
Based on my personal learning experience, it didn't help learn Spanish by studying solo. Learning a language becomes that much more fun when you have people to practice with, especially with local or native speakers in the authentic context. Besides learning from Spanish teachers in Language school, then there's the great opportunity of touring around the destinations we travelled and living with locals, it certainly helped me to stay motivated in my learning approach as I desperately wanted to improve the level of conversation and comprehension.
More interestingly and challengingly, we were given a great chance to observe and teach in local schools, which had spurred us to learn Spanish hard and practice it everyday so as to communicate well with those lovely and curious students. Now I am still remembering the day when I introduced myself in Spanish to the grade 2 kids. They were surprised and very happy that I could speak their language. I was also very impressed when a boy came up with greeting and asked my name in Spanish. He hugged me and considered me as his friend. I tried my best to understand him and answer him in Spanish. He was very happy. However, when I tutored their project, I couldn’t understand their questions and had to wait for my instructor to translate, helpless. At that time, I was very embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I realized that language is very essential to know more about a country, its culture and its people. So I made up my mind that I would learn Spanish harder and do what I can to help those lovely kids.
In addition, what I have learned from my language learning experience is that non-verbal communication is as important as verbal communication. Based on this, mutual understanding, tolerance of difference, and the good knowledge of the culture of the target country are fundamental to communicate with people of different from our own in cross cultural context.
Although I am now a elementary Spanish language learner, I will keep up learning and realize my goal of speaking with fluency and help those great kids out as possible as I can.
Charming in its culture and with the heritage of millenary civilizations such as the Mexica, Maya, and Aztec, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, with a population of about 112 million inhabitants, and 90% people are very friendly, patient, and warm to help foreigners out and try and hold a conversation with us in Spanish, which for me is a great motivation to learn Spanish.
Based on my personal learning experience, it didn't help learn Spanish by studying solo. Learning a language becomes that much more fun when you have people to practice with, especially with local or native speakers in the authentic context. Besides learning from Spanish teachers in Language school, then there's the great opportunity of touring around the destinations we travelled and living with locals, it certainly helped me to stay motivated in my learning approach as I desperately wanted to improve the level of conversation and comprehension.
More interestingly and challengingly, we were given a great chance to observe and teach in local schools, which had spurred us to learn Spanish hard and practice it everyday so as to communicate well with those lovely and curious students. Now I am still remembering the day when I introduced myself in Spanish to the grade 2 kids. They were surprised and very happy that I could speak their language. I was also very impressed when a boy came up with greeting and asked my name in Spanish. He hugged me and considered me as his friend. I tried my best to understand him and answer him in Spanish. He was very happy. However, when I tutored their project, I couldn’t understand their questions and had to wait for my instructor to translate, helpless. At that time, I was very embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I realized that language is very essential to know more about a country, its culture and its people. So I made up my mind that I would learn Spanish harder and do what I can to help those lovely kids.
In addition, what I have learned from my language learning experience is that non-verbal communication is as important as verbal communication. Based on this, mutual understanding, tolerance of difference, and the good knowledge of the culture of the target country are fundamental to communicate with people of different from our own in cross cultural context.
Although I am now a elementary Spanish language learner, I will keep up learning and realize my goal of speaking with fluency and help those great kids out as possible as I can.
The Interaction of Language with Culture
Appendix for Spanish Language Learning
Reference:
Pictures are retrieved on June 18, 2015 from Google Images
Pictures are retrieved on June 18, 2015 from Google Images