the circuslike nature of language
Language is completely silly. How crazy is it that humans use specific vocalization patterns and scribbles to communicate ideas with other humans? While I was chatting with one of my students at the nursery school I mentioned that the play house that they were using was very 'messy'. The student found this statement completely hilarious as Lionel Messi is a very famous member of FC Barcelona. The house is Messi. Yes, that certainly does create an interesting mental image.
This really made me think about the nature of communication in general. I took a trip to Barcelona this weekend, and I was really struck by the way that color and certain images can communicate ideas to humans of all nationalities. In Barcelona the people use Catalan, which is a bit different than Spanish. My developing Spanish mind had a difficult time interpreting signs written in Catalan, but I could certainly see the similarities between the two. I relied quite a bit on images and colors to find meaning from signs. As I sat on the Barcelona Metro train I thought about how awesome it is that I know that the green button will open the door and the red button will close the door even though I could not read the written word. As a society we have decided that green means go and red means stop, and everyone seems to understand and comply with this idea. Isn't that incredible?
This week in the nursery school I really tried to incorporate images to strengthen my communication with the students. We focused on the circus this week, and planned activities accordingly. We made elephant hats. We played ringleader and did simple tricks to earn peanuts. We also talked about the members of the circus and what they do. The students got to walk on a piece of marking tape like a tightrope. I also made balloon dogs and swords for the students (they had to tell me which they preferred and what color they wanted). This was the last week for many of the students so we certainly wanted to make it fun for the students.
Overall, I think we had a fairly successful and silly week. I'm still learning lots about the Spanish language. During the week I spend a lot of time with the kids in my host family. I enjoy practicing my Spanish with my two year old host brother, as he is very open to my poor Spanish and he likes to talk about ridiculous things like elephants in bag that I am carrying. This is a quality that I would like to carry as a teacher. I want to make my students feel comfortable enough that they feel free to experiment with language, and have fun while doing so! Who knew that I could learn such an important teaching lesson from a two year old?
Next week, we will be talking about castles, dragons, kings, and queens! I'll let you know about it soon!
Hasta luego.
-Lindsey
This really made me think about the nature of communication in general. I took a trip to Barcelona this weekend, and I was really struck by the way that color and certain images can communicate ideas to humans of all nationalities. In Barcelona the people use Catalan, which is a bit different than Spanish. My developing Spanish mind had a difficult time interpreting signs written in Catalan, but I could certainly see the similarities between the two. I relied quite a bit on images and colors to find meaning from signs. As I sat on the Barcelona Metro train I thought about how awesome it is that I know that the green button will open the door and the red button will close the door even though I could not read the written word. As a society we have decided that green means go and red means stop, and everyone seems to understand and comply with this idea. Isn't that incredible?
This week in the nursery school I really tried to incorporate images to strengthen my communication with the students. We focused on the circus this week, and planned activities accordingly. We made elephant hats. We played ringleader and did simple tricks to earn peanuts. We also talked about the members of the circus and what they do. The students got to walk on a piece of marking tape like a tightrope. I also made balloon dogs and swords for the students (they had to tell me which they preferred and what color they wanted). This was the last week for many of the students so we certainly wanted to make it fun for the students.
Overall, I think we had a fairly successful and silly week. I'm still learning lots about the Spanish language. During the week I spend a lot of time with the kids in my host family. I enjoy practicing my Spanish with my two year old host brother, as he is very open to my poor Spanish and he likes to talk about ridiculous things like elephants in bag that I am carrying. This is a quality that I would like to carry as a teacher. I want to make my students feel comfortable enough that they feel free to experiment with language, and have fun while doing so! Who knew that I could learn such an important teaching lesson from a two year old?
Next week, we will be talking about castles, dragons, kings, and queens! I'll let you know about it soon!
Hasta luego.
-Lindsey
Pictures from Barcelona:
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