I apologize about the lack of blog posts. The pictures I've been adding to my posts have been causing minor errors when uploading, and when I thought all blogs were posted of course an error occurred right before it was submitted. So I have to omit all my pictures in order to have enough blogs submitted.
My recent thoughts about the Dominican is that almost every person here is bilingual. Actually some speak three or four languages. My first thought is about how envious I am of them, and then the second is how?
Then I got to thinking.
The people here are thrown into diverse cultures. They are exposed to different languages at such young ages. In the United States, or from my own personal experience, we are introduced to a second language in middle school, unless family members at home speak anything other than English. What they say is true, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I feel if I, as well as many others, were exposed to a different language so young in life that picking up a different language wouldn't be as difficult.
I find trying to learn spanish is very difficult. I know my learning style is different from others and learning from a lecture teaching point is not working for me. What I have found to be effective for me, is going out into the community and talking with the people. It's been beneficial because I don't have someone filling in the blanks for me. At times I have people giving me the blank stares meaning they don't understand me, which forces me to think on my feet and adjust what I've just said.
Being in a different country is also a new experience for me. Meeting people who speak more than two languages is also new for me. Both of these have inspired me to continue learning Spanish and to look into how I could incorporate a different language into my own classroom.