Three Hours of Spanish

Today I had my first Spanish class - three hours, one-on-one, intensive, fatiguing, headache producing. This is not a critique of my teacher. Albertina is wonderful, and I like her approach to instruction. This is a commentary on how difficult it is to learn a new language, especially for an old brain with plaque-encrusted neurons and synapses that have diminished transfer rates. I believe I could feel my brain swelling as it tried to process all the new information. I remember experiencing the same head-splitting feeling on other occasions when I worked through difficult mathematical equations or complex computer programs. It is the feeling that comes as your brain is confronted with a large amount of new information and begins to make connections and associations and to build new neural pathways. But, this is great!!! It is the challenge I wanted.

The mode of instruction is very dialogical. Albertina is well trained and speaks Spanish 99.9% of the time, and makes good use of newspapers, pictures, objects and gestures. Today I learned numbers, time, dates and how to describe things and people. In one of the activities she gave me a Spanish language newspaper that was about 3 months old. The front page article was about Barack Obama and John McCain. I had to give descriptions of each person. I could use English words, then Antonia would say and write the corresponding Spanish word. For example, in describing Barack Obama, I would say, "el es married." Antonia would respond by saying and writing, "el es casado." I was then to know 'casado' means 'married' and use that word as I described other people.

It is now time to let my swelled neurons get some rest and return to normal. I hope sleep will facilitate the transfer of short-term memory to long-term memory - if I recall correctly that actually happens. I must get up at 5:45 tomorrow morning so Juan Carlos and I can leave the house by 6:45. Traffic in the morning is extremely slow and Juan Carlos was late to work this morning after dropping me off at CASAS. The picture is me in my bedroom.