Typical Day
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Grabbing the Tiger by the Whiskers
We spend 3 to 4 hours a day in formal classes. Terry and I squeeze in an additional hour each in informal lessons with our “tandem” students. More about that in a future blog. Conversing with the family over meals yields an additional 3 to 3 ½ hours a day of intense Spanish. And with up to 4 hours of (sometimes self-imposed) homework, we have a full day.
All of our classes are in the morning…sort of. The last session ends by 2 or 2:30. We’ve switched all our classes to private or semi-private, which increases the immersion – and the pressure. We can neither run nor hide. Nor hope our teachers will call on someone else.
Private Classes: The Shift toward Conversational Spanish
For less than an additional $150 USD, we switched to private Spanish lessons. So we could customize our learning foreign language efforts and to meet our needs for practical oral Spanish, with less emphasis on grammar. Last night, I worked on ideas for how we might shift the emphasis, then did a short presentation to all three of our teachers this morning.
Maximo Nivel is very flexible with the private students, and we saw an immediate and dramatic change the same day. I’ll probably refine these ideas and include them in a future ezine if readers would be interested. Let us know through the Contact Us page.
But it is exhausting. Including the 4½ hours I spent on the presentation and on homework last night, I put in a 13-hour day yesterday, then woke up at 3:30, my mind buzzing with additional ideas. Never went back to sleep.
Our Schedule: Glub! Glub! Drinking from a Firehose
So how does a more or less typical day look? Take a peek:
| Time | Ann | Terry | Shawn |
| 7 am | Breakfast; go to tandem | Breakfast with Ann or … with Shawn; go to class |
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| 8 am | Tandem with Juan | Breakfast; go to class | |
| 9 am | Private class with Luz |
Private class with Jackie | Private classes with Mabel |
| 10 am | Terry & Ann: shared class with Jackie | ||
| 11 am | Terry & Ann: shared class with Luz | ||
| 12 pm | Time on Internet | ||
| 1 pm | Time on Internet |
Tandem with Maria Rosa | |
| 2 pm | Various errands; then go home for lunch and siesta (ok, I admit: the siesta is nothing new; we’ve been doing it for at least 30 years…) | ||
| 3 pm | |||
| 4 pm | Studying and essential tasks: trips to doctor (see previous blogs); shopping for Kleenex (goes with trips to doctor), bottled water, and necessities for cameras and excursions | ||
| 5 pm | |||
| 6 pm | |||
| 7:30 | Dinner | ||
| 8 – 10 pm | Linger over dinner with our host family in deep discussions about politics or other topics of the day, or study, or blog, or jump on Internet…or some combination | ||
The Debate: Is This the Best Schedule for Us?
In a word, our learning foreign language schedule is grueling. We’re debating how to cut back to maintain our sanity and still maximize our learning. The tandems add a lot of variety and expand our thinking because, like us, they are students, and they bring that important perspective from a younger vantage.
The time spent at meals, particularly the evening meal when we are not as rushed, is incredibly intense but also interesting and entertaining. Last night, for example, we got into a long discussion about agrarian reform, economic development, and politics. I missed a lot of the nuance, but wouldn’t have missed the discussion for the world, nor the ongoing jokes and ribbing.
But we know we have to make more time for the blog and for our thinking about learning foreign language, both of which have suffered. Get up earlier? Go to bed later? Cut someplace else? That’s the question we’ll deal with over the weekend.
Yikes, after the weekend, we’ll have just eight more days of classes left.
--Posted by Ann, October 18
Out-takes: And the jokes with the family are priceless. We share ongoing ribbing about portion size and canned fruit in this region of immense variety of fresh tropical fruit. We prefer small portions; Sonia’s servings are overwhelmingly generous. So occasionally she will put just a bean or two on my plate. And Terry and Shawn bought Sonia her her very own fresh pineapple yesterday, in case she hadn’t seen one.
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