Português próxima

I've just finished reading Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier, which I really enjoyed. Essentially a story of a teacher of ancient languages voyage of self-discovery triggered by a chance meeting with an unnamed Portuguese woman it was very enjoyable and thought provoking, putting me in mind of Sophie's World (though without the massive plot twist). The book is littered with quotations and phrases in Portuguese, which I was very pleasantly surprised to find I mostly understood - most of the nouns are similar to their Spanish counterparts, while the verbs and articles follow the same rules as other Romance languages. Pronunciation is the major difference. Anyway, I think I'll make a start learning Portuguese next. When I've finally mastered Spanish of course. So 2020 then.

Actually I'm feeling more and more confident about Spanish. I still litter my conversation with mistakes, but I'm generally understood and I usually understand. As we've been negotiating our unborn child's process through Madrid's health service we've both been called upon to engage with Spanish with a greater frequency than before, while hanging out with some of my former students (who have a lower level of English than our Pueblo Ingles friends) has meant we socialise more and more in the language. We've also been going along to free lessons at International House again - really these are training classes for new Spanish teachers, but the need guinea pigs, so we get them free. We've made some good friends among some of the regular attendees, although why there aren't more people taking advantage of them I don't know; often there's been just 3 of us in a class. Still, it means we get loads of attention.

Spanish lessons

We went to our first Spanish lesson this morning. 9.30am up at the International House branch Nuevos Ministerios. Naturally, being English, we were muy punctuales. There were only 5 of us to start with, outnumbered by the trainee Spanish Teachers giving us our free lessons as they practised their skills on us. Susan - a Canadian au pair, here for 6 months, who spoke even less Spanish than Kate and I - Ababacar - a student from Senegal, who seemed far too advanced for this beginner's group - and Ibrahima - the youngest at 16, also from Senegal, here to play football. The teachers were very nice, confident and clear, taking us through ice-breakers and basics - introductions, numbers and the alphabet. Nothing we didn't really already know, but it was good to have the formal structure of lessons. Plus we get to practice our French after class with Ababacar and Ibrahima!!

Let loose on unwitting learners

Theo and I have both completed our first twenty minutes of classroom teaching. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you have a class of expectant faces in front of you (at least I assume that was the expression. I suppose some of them might have had wind or something) and zero experience at the chalk face (it's a white board nowadays, but that doesn't seem to sound as good) it's a tad daunting. However, Theo and I reckon we both did okay - at least, none of our students nor ourselves felt compelled to run out of the room screaming - whether any actual learning took place is a moot point. Mind you, I think we both learned that it is better to appear fairly relaxed, even if you want to run out of the room screaming, so that's something. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks we may actually manage to teach our pupils to speak some English. Although they appeared to be doing a lot of that without too much assistance on our part, luckily.

But in all seriousness, the fact that we have just spent the last week helping Spaniards improve their English (when we weren't dancing, drinking or telling filthy stories to one another) certainly gave our confidence levels a huge head-start. We both quite enjoyed it, too.