Aero: Alyssa Davis – Costa Rica 2013 – Life at School
Aero: Alyssa Davis – Costa Rica 2013 – Life at School
Aero: Alyssa Davis – Costa Rica 2013 – Life at School
Learning a foreign language in its native country is vastly different than learning the same language in a country where it is not frequently spoken. This should be common sense, but it’s hard to imagine something you’ve never experienced before, so let me paint it out for you. The Centro Cultural de Idiomas is a small building with only four classrooms. Each room has about ten desks for students, one for the teacher, a dry erase board, a trash can, and a couple fans to keep us cool in the tropical heat. Nothing goes to waste in Costa Rica. There were no hand-outs or required texts for this course, save the pocket dictionary that was necessary to function on a daily basis anyway.
We were required to speak entirely in Spanish, except when clarifying directions among each other. Every class was spent taking notes on a simple lesson and then putting it into practice via round-robin games and verbal fill-in-the-blank exercises. It is important to note that not every class was spent in these small rooms. We ventured into the city park to ask the locals various questions about food, safety, and locations of businesses. The entire class played charades and association games in the presence of peacocks in a rehabilitation zoo. Our final class was spent basking in the sweet sunshine at a country club while playing fast paced verb conjugation games. For a student, it was the stuff of dreams.
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Learning was made easy in Alajuela. Much of the subject material was review for me, but the lessons were put together very succinctly so that they were applicable to our environment immediately. We began with the normal introductory lesson and continued on with numbers so we would be able to meet people properly and purchase items without fear of monetary miscommunication. Past, present, and future tenses were covered inside of a week, as well as a laundry list of new vocabulary words daily. We watched short films and described each plot in Spanish to the best of our ability. Our education in school was dominated by grammar lessons and short games to ingrain the material into our brains. By the end of my two week stay I was able to confidently and accurately hold entire conversations with locals, asking taxi drivers to take me home, ordering pizza from a pizzeria, and even explaining a specific hair style to a hair dresser.
The only way this was possible was because I made it so. I was constantly writing new words and phrases in my notebook. I took pen and paper with me everywhere, favoring to document the constant learning experience rather than don a dumbfounded expression during conversations. By asking my family to repeat phrases and explain the meaning behind them I was able to take that understanding back into the classroom and share my newfound intelligence with my classmates. The learning experience in Alajuela was intimidating at times, especially because there was no stopping it. New words were tossed around like praise in a church and mentors were as common as smiles on a playground. Considering that I was exposed to an entire culture in just over a two week span, I’m sure I’ll still be processing and interpreting the experience for years to come.
– Alyssa Davis
The LEAF Project
www.leaflanguages.org
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