Had a Spanish class tonight. Very frustrating. For lots of reasons. Mostly due to my lack of time to practice. Some of the frustration was with the other students. I think that being a teacher makes me more sensitive to how a class should go and I resent when the teacher doesn't keep control of those students who want to monopolize the class.
But most of my dissatisfaction is my own lack of practice and progress. So how do I fix this? Well, one option is to keep a journal (on paper, not online) in Spanish. Another option is to join a discussion board (online) that is in Spanish. Speaking is what I really need to practice, but my limited time means that I have to do this practice on my own schedule. So writing practice will have to take the place of speaking practice. I will find opportunities to speak at school. But many of the other students have scheduled an hour or so a day with a Spanish speaker to just practice. I don't have an extra hour and I don't know any Spanish speakers who have the time either. After September is over I will be more free on Friday evenings and maybe we can go back to our coffee shop intercambios.
Now I am off to find some website where I can have online discussions in Spanish. At least online discussions can't be monopolized! I won't have to work so hard to be able to get into the conversation.
On a positive note (can you tell this isn't one of my most positive evenings?), it makes me more aware of how I have to make sure that no students are feeling that they can't participate because classmates aren't letting them into the discussion.
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