It is helpful to learn a foreign language. I started to learn Spanish in 6th grade. I never knew what to expect. The process of learning English was so painful for me that I completely expected to give up after the required year of taking a language, but I chose not to.
It turned out that I fell in love with it. For some reason learning a language must occur in a different part of the brain because it turned out that I was able to catch on quickly.
I still put a lot of effort into learning Spanish, but it all came with ease. I was able to see the results that I hadn’t seen in other subjects.
My first Spanish teacher was terrific. She was part of the reason I fell in love with the language. I was able to want to continue my learning throughout my school career.
Spanish: Troubles
There were some frustrating times and concepts I have more of a difficult time with, but the difference was that I was able to have a drive through that frustration.
There was a teacher in high school that made me fall out of love with the language. This teacher did not understand that for me to be fluent in Spanish, I will be slower at retrieving words because that was how I speak English.
This caused a lot of problems between us, and it was not fun. I ended up dreading going to class. The homework was just something I needed to do. It made me sad.
In my junior year of high school, I had the opportunity to live in Guatemala for two weeks. I lived with a family, and they didn’t speak any English.