Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Habla Ya language school


These two weeks we have been practicing our Spanish at Habla Ya language school.  Last week the kids and I took lessons each morning and Danny spent the time on his own checking email, drinking locally-grown coffee (yum!) and wandering the town.  This week Harper and I have lessons in the afternoon.   Sometimes I wonder if language school would have served us better had we started here before our travels to Ecuador.  For me it might have helped refresh things a little sooner, but for Harper I think this order has served her best.  Although we are coming to the end of our traveling the Spanish lessons have been a great way to cement what she's learned this year.  Harper has made crazy connections these two weeks and is rapidly becoming a serious Spanish speaker!  It is so fun to see her bringing together all the vocab and structure stuff she has heard these last 7 months.

Some of Harper's work

So needless to say Harper loves the lessons.  In class they play Simon Says, listen to music, sing songs, learn magic tricks and color pictures of vocabulary.  Cal went for two hours a day last week and I think sitting at a desk staying focused like that was a lot to ask of him.  Maybe if he had a teacher that could teach Spanish while playing soccer he would have lasted longer.  He told us that in class he spoke in Spanish a lot, only sometimes he would talk "just quiet enough for Harper to hear."  (So she was doing double duty translating for him!)  At the end of last week he told us he wanted to be all done "doing Cabeza" (playing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.)  So we took the hint and told him he graduated.  He was happy to be finished and Harper has been just as happy to continue on without him.



1 comment:

  1. Gracias Angela, que bueno que te gusta la escuela Habla Ya, a ti y a tu familia, tus hijos son adorables. Esperamos que sigas teniendo un feliz viaje y que regresen pronto!! =)

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