Learning a second language

Today S was telling me all about Spanish. Her teacher has interesting ideas and S was sharing with us what they did in class.

But it's funny how many Spanish words we've learned over the years. I learned how to count in Spanish. But since then there have been so many cartoon/children's shows that have contained some Spanish words. "Gullah, Gullah, Island," was one such show. They had a Spanish character on there talking about their grandmother and grandfather....I can say those two words in Spanish (but I can't spell them). Also we used to watch "Sesame Street" in Spanish (thanks to satellite) and have tuned into some "Dora the Explorer." Also we had a computer program, "Jump Start Spanish." We do have another program Spanish that we bought recently so S could study over the summer.

This is really good that she is taking a foreign language in HS. I didn't have the opportunity when I was in JH or HS. My English grades weren't high enough for their standards. So when I went to college I had to take a foreign language. I was faced with taking Greek or French. I took the latter. It wasn't easy as most everyone else had taken at least one year of a foreign language in HS.

The first semester I took it from an mean old lady who was taking over for the regular professor. He was on sabatical that year so I had to take it from "Zelda." She was quite mean and very cross. She even made me cry in class, as I was doing the best I could, but she didn't think so. When the second semester that year came up, I opted not to take it from her. So I waited a year (after my student teaching block) to take it in the second semester from: (see link) http://www.uu.edu/dept/hispsc/carlsbio.htm . He was much more fun and I never felt like a failure with him. We had to do a play in French and to this day (after 29 years) I still remember parts of it! "Ici, becasine." (Here snipe). We had written about a "snipe hunt." That's all I could think about writting in my group, they didn't have any ideas. I didn't do too bad, passing with a C.

Oh and my English grades? Well, I got better. In fact I minored in English in college. My HS counselor had no idea that I could do that well.