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.