Aero: Meagan Hilsdorf – Costa Rica 2014 – Life at School

Aero: Meagan Hilsdorf – Costa Rica 2014 – Life at School

Aero: Meagan Hilsdorf – Costa Rica 2014 – Life at School

Meagan Hilsdorf

In high school and in college as a Biochemistry major I have learned through experience that your education is what you put into it, and the more effort and the harder you work at it the more you get out of it. I feel that this is also true with life and I utilized this attitude during my trip to Costa Rica. I had taken 4 years of Spanish in high school, however I was out of practice but I was hopeful that being amerced in the language my Spanish education would come back to me. In high school our Spanish teacher utilized games like Pictionary, Scrabble, poems and quiz games to teach us the material. I felt that this was helpful in solidifying the vocabulary but we didn’t focus on speaking Spanish as much as writing it and memorizing it. Our school was small by United States standards and our Spanish class had only 20 students. This allowed us to get more one on one help from the teacher. However, I felt that our Spanish classes were more designed with the New York State Regents in mind, versus being able to utilize Spanish. We also utilized books, study lists and notebooks to take notes and practice writing, and some poems to practice reciting in Spanish.

Costa Rica 2014 Photo Gallery

Heading into the Study Abroad Spanish Program I was anticipating that I would struggle at first in comprehending spoken Spanish. However, I felt through the classes, as well as interacting with my host family I would be able to hone my Spanish skills. The first night was a little rough trying to communicate with my host mother and her family but I was determined to work on it. The next day at our first day of school I was amazed at just how small the school was. It was a small building behind a bared door and you took the stairs up to the small classroom. It made me rethink my concept of a “small” school, but I felt it had a close tight nit cozy feel to it, especially since there was only six of us in the class. Also, I was very impressed with our teacher Joxiny and her teaching methods. She was very bubbly and welcoming, she told us that we would be learning together because she was learning English. As I predicted I found that I struggled most with comprehending spoken Spanish, but I remember more vocabulary and how to write Spanish. But Joxiny was very patient and understood that this would be a big hurdle for us. So she utilized fun activities to not only help us with Spanish comprehension, but break the ice and get us involved. She had us listening to songs and then singing along, playing board games, having us answer questions the best we could and have fun doing it. We took some notes but it was more essential for us to get more practical experience speaking and comprehending Spanish. She really took the time to help us with pronunciation of vowels and words, and push us to speak more Spanish and not rely on English.

What I also found different to teaching in the United States was during the Study Abroad program was how our educational experience was not limited to the class room. During the trip our Spanish Classroom encompassed everything we did while in Costa Rica. Every part of our itinerary allowed us the opportunity to hone our Spanish speaking skills by interacting with people, asking questions and getting involved. From learning how to say “salt” from the ocean at Jaco, learning the names of the native wildlife on our nature walks in Monteverde, reading the menu at restaurants and speaking with my host family. In addition, we had the unique opportunity to have class in the Castillo Country Club and in the lawn of Zoo ave in the company of some intrigued peacocks or “pavo real”. This gave us a different educational experience that focused instead on strictly vocabulary and memorization, but comprehension and using my knowledge to comprehend Spanish better, as well as feeling more comfortable speaking it. In addition, our lessons were focused on skills and vocabulary that we needed to better answer questions and interact during our visit to Costa Rica.

I found these classes very helpful and a personal challenge. I forced myself to speak more, ask more questions and come out of my comfort zone to get the most out of this experience and I found that my Spanish is better for it. This experience has also encourage me to be more proactive in my Spanish studies and take steps to become more fluent so that I will be able to utilize my Spanish skills in the future.

Learn More: Study abroad with Modern Languages @ FLCC: Costa Rica!

– Meagan Hilsdorf

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