Today was the first day of classes for my second trimester of language school. Our schedule this time around is a bit different than last trimester. Tara and I both are doing something different (I’m sure she’ll tell you all about what she’s doing).
Last Tri we started out at 7:30am with 2 hours of Grammar. Then at 9:20 we had a language class where we talked (or tried to talk). At 10:10 we had Chaple/Break and then at 11:15 we had a Phonetics class. During the morning the boys would be in childcare, we’d get them at about 12:15, go home, eat lunch, then they would nap and we’d study or rest.
This Tri I’m doing a special program through the school called FARO. Thats an acronym that stands for Facilitador (Facilitator), Ayudante (Helper), Ruta (Route), Oír (Hear)/ Observar (Observe)/ Organizar (Organize). I have a teacher at the school who will be facilitating my learning and keeping track of my progress. I will meet 2 times a week with a helper in the community. This person needs to be native speaker. He will help me formulate a conversation that I will have with people on my route. We’ll write down 2 paragraphs per week, I’ll record him reading them,then memorize them. I will then use that to begin conversations with the people on my route. My helper is my next door neighbor, Guillermo. He is a lawyer and a very nice person. I’m looking forward to getting to now him better. My route will consist of 7-10 people who agree to talk with me 2 times a week for about 10-20 minutes. I will then report on what I learn from these conversation by both hearing the language and observing the culture. There are also some other projects I need to do as part of the program, but I won’t get into that now.
So my schedule as I see it right now (Tara and I still need to feel things out, Tara’s will be much different than mine) will look like this. 7:30am 2 hours of Grammar. Monday/Friday 9:20am Meet with my Faro group and Facilitator 11:00 – 1:30 on my route/study. Tues/Wed/Thur 9:30-1:30 on my route.
I meet with my neighbor for the first time tonight, hopefully all goes well!
I’m exciting about this next tri and getting deep into the language.
[...] on the street speak to you. And I’m perfecting it! The program I’m in right now (see my previous post) has you memorize a paragraph of text, written by a native speaker, and recorded by the native [...]
[...] Rich • May 18, 2008 This trimester I am doing the same FARO program that Brian is doing. So far, I absolutely love it. I have some very kind and [...]