Tuesday Tarea with A Panama Mama - My Spanish Background and Me Gusta Video
For my first Tuesday Tarea, I would like to share with you a little about me and my background in Spanish.
My love for Spanish started as far back as Kindergarten. I remember my instructors teaching us how to count to ten in Spanish. That was in a little town in west Texas. Then in sixth grade, I attended school in the same town at a school where sixth grade was in one building and the rest of the school was in the other. The majority of the other students were Spanish speaking, but we didn't interact much at all. I remember that one time I met a student on the playground and she didn't speak English.
My love for Spanish really started in high school. My first year was like everyone else's where you don't really retain much. Spanish 2 was a different story. Mrs. Costilla was my favorite high school teacher and the reason my future changed from "I don't know what I want to do" to "I want to be a Spanish teacher." It wasn't anything exceptional that she did, but she made me fall in love with Spanish and that love grew for many years. Class involved memorizing songs, poems and phrases. I can still remember these today! Spanish 3 was tough and then I had Mrs. Costilla again in Spanish 4 as a senior. This class pushed me and was my hardest class ever, by far.
In college, my major was Spanish. I had classes like Hispanic literature, linguistics, conversational Spanish and Spanish labs. I loved my college professor as she was very encouraging and I worked as her secretary and lab assistant for a few years. I also studied one summer in Spain during college.
I taught middle school Spanish 1 for three years before taking a break and moving to Toluca, Mexico for a year and a half to do mission work. During this time, my confidence in Spanish grew. I had always had it in my head, but it was hard to actually speak the language. Making myself talk to locals, hearing it every day and being pretty immersed in it didn't give me many options but to jump in.
After my time in Toluca, I moved back to Texas and taught Spanish 1 for three more years to middle school students. Then I stopped again in order to stay home with our kids. Fast forward 9 years and you find me here, living in Panama, but that is another story for another day.
Now that you know a little about my Spanish background, I'd like to introduce you to my plan for Tuesdays on my blog. I am calling it Tuesday Tarea because tarea means homework. Spanish is something that you have to work at, and that's where I hope this will help. I want to share videos, tips, poems, songs and other Spanish lessons on Tuesdays to get you motivated to learn some more on your own. I hope that you will join me!
In closing, I'd like to share with you a video I always played for my students on Day 1. It's one of the easiest phrases to learn in Spanish and is very useful. Check out the video and tell me in the comments what you think!
Tuesday Tarea will be brought to you here every Tuesday by A Panama Mama.
Check back each week for videos, lessons, poems and much more that will encourage you to explore Spanish!
If you would like to share your thoughts on Spanish, feel free to in the comments.
Gracias por visitarme. Hasta luego.
I can only speak a little Spanish but I love Latin foods! Maybe you can share some recipes you've learned along the way?
Tacos and quesadillas? ;) Good idea! Thanks for stopping by!
Tacos al pastor with onions and cilantro is one of my favorites.
Buen artículo. Estoy trabajando de TA de instructor en una clase de 101. Todavía no hemos llegado a me gusta pero prontito lo verémos. Todavía dicen algunos »Me llamo es... ». Quizás arreglarémos eso en el mismo momento.
¡Buen trabajo!
Ja ja. Me llamo es... siempre es un problema. Es dificil comprender que "me llamo" significa "I call myself" entonces anadir "es" no es Bueno. ;) Gracias por su respuesta
You are awesome! I'll be hanging out improving my Spanish with ya!
Sounds like a good plan! ;)
Enhorabuena caballero
Good for you learning so much Spanish when you were young! I think it makes a huge difference here in Panama when you can communicate with people and make friends. It's been hard for me but so worth it because my Panamanian friends are such a great part of my life here. I'll look forward to more of your Tuesday posts!
It does help here, but there is also such a huge population that speaks some English, that helps too! I am trying to work with my kids to learn some but they act like it is torture, so we mostly just try to do a cartoon or two in Spanish every day. I need my husband to learn too! I have noticed he is slowly getting better lately though!
It takes a long time to learn, at least it did me and I still have a lot more to learn. Poco a poco
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. We learned Spanish by fire when we first arrived in Central America 16 years ago. We knew no Spanish and our neighbours didn't speak English, French, German or Dutch. Japanese didn't work either. You tend to learn a language more rapidly when you need it in order to survive. I think lots of recipes would be interesting for the folks on Steemit. Each Latin American country has its own national dishes. It is interesting to note that while all countries speak Spanish, it won't be the same as what you learn in school. Here, where I live, for instance, the Spanish is mixed with two different Indigenous languages. It does become confusing at times. Perhaps it would be interesting if you could include some of the cultural aspects of Panama for those of us haven't visited there.
I like those ideas! Thanks for commenting. Interesting about the language there. They speak so fast and run stuff together here. It is hard to understand a lot. To make sure I do understand, I repeat back to them in my own words what I've heard. That way we are both clear.
And sometimes that doesn't work either, but they do have a tendency to speak very quickly and here in Nicaragua they tend to drop their s'.
Lol! So true that it sometimes doesn't work. :)
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