#hayquereciclar

Empezamos una nueva unidad, which means it is absolutely imperative we do our best to continue recycling what we’ve learned so far. Turn to a fresh page en tus apuntes (in your notes) and do the following exercise. Take a moment to generate a short list of things you’ve picked up so far. Can you recall 10 vocab words you’ve learned in the past several weeks without looking back in your notes? Can you categorize them according to noun, adjective, verb, etc? How many stem-changing verbs and go-yo verbs can you and your colega list? Can you conjugate them with close to 100% accuracy by yourself? Can you name all of the possessive adjectives? (My, your, his/her, our, their en español) Can you discuss the difference between ser and estar?

To circle back to the idea of #unlearning, we must break the old, bad habit of “compartmentalizing” our learning. When we trudge from unit to unit, cram and dump for tests, and fail to realize that everything we learn in one unit is crucial knowledge for the next one, el resultado is minimal retention of knowledge and skills, and maximum estrés y frustración. Here are three ideas to ensure you make your learning more sustainable and less stressful:

1. Look ahead into the unit on the Español 2 webpage. Es importante referir al calendario para saber fechas importantes de las pruebas. También… Did you know I have a course syllabus? It’s in the side navigation bar of my website, específicamente, you can find it as a subpage debajo de “Español 2”. Access it now and explore the content via the embedded hyperlinks. Identify anything within it that you already know, or make predictions about what you will see.
2. Sharpen your brain’s saw. If you don’t sharpen an actual saw, it becomes dull loses its ability to cut through materials. Think of your brain, specifically your #SpanishBrain, and all the neural pathways you’ve created these first several weeks, as the tool you use to saw “Spanish lumber” – bookwork, speaking activities and games, and quizzes. When you cease to use those newly-created neural pathways (called “synapses”, FYI), your nervous system recognizes they are going unused, and literally cuts them away, a process called “synaptic pruning”. What does all this neuroscience mumbo-jumbo mean for you as a learner? As the old saying goes, “If you don’t use it, you lose it!” And that means a final grade of a C- at best in my class, for the record! 😬
3. ¡Hay que pedir ayuda! In case you didn’t get the memo, ¡la clase de español es súper difícil! (Yeah, you can say “super” in Spanish.) Believe it or not, this is a good thing. When your brain is challenged, it means your brain is literally growing (see previous link about synapses). It’s easy to give up and begrudgingly accept that you won’t get the grade you were hoping for, and it is definitely common for students to pin their woes on me... pero en realidad, I wouldn’t be doing mi trabajo if I didn’t make you work for tu nota.

#desaprender (#unlearn)

In order to be un/a hispanohablante exitoso/a, you must #unlearn, or #desaprender, everything you do to create language. To speak Spanish effectively, for example, you must modify your facial and lingual muscle usage (recall the history of the pronunciation of “r” in English), and your overall phonology must completely change. To write in Spanish effectively, your approach to syntax and grammar must also do a 180º turn...sometimes literally! Do you recall the Ted Talk video you watched last week about los tres tipos de bilingües? The third type, “subordinate bilingual”, in which you filter a new language through your native language, is the bilingual category under which most of you fall, and it presents a variety of desafíos that leads to a lot of frustration.

Think of anytime you’ve had to write para la clase de español. Did you think about your idea in Spanish? In all likelihood, you came up with your idea in English, and then dump Spanish hot sauce all over it. En el pasado, whenever I’ve given my students a writing assignment, many have asked if they can write their assignment en inglés and then translate it a español. My answer to this question is simply: NO. ¿Por qué? Because every single time that approach is employed, their process is dominated by their English brain, their product ends up being very poor, and as a result, so does their grade, resulting in el enojo

Here I see dos cosas that we need to address. Primero, teachers must be careful when teaching students how to translate and interpret language. Segundo, students must work to be resilient when it comes to writing in Spanish, using known vocabulary and grammar to provide an accurate snapshot of their level of proficiency at any given time along the Spanish learning journey. Claro, this will seem very limiting at first, pero con paciencia y esfuerza, you will start to feel yourself improve

Les invito a todos mis estudiantes a hacer lo siguiente in order to improve their Spanish speaking and writing skills: limit yourself to using Google Translate or any comparable web service as much as you can. Try only using it to look up nouns and adjectives, and do your best to instead use el vocabulario, verb conjugations, and verb constructions that you’ve learned in class or have en tus apuntes. Essentially, this means you have to #keepitsimple when it comes to speaking and writing Spanish, and to #usewhatyouknow so that you establish a foundation upon which you will build more knowledge and skills. Besides, any halfway-decent profesor de español can always tell when a student writes an entire assignment in English, copies and pastes it in Google Translate, and copies and pastes its translation back into their document! 😜

Dealing With Summer Learning Loss

Ay, ¡ya está aquí el año escolar! Seems like el verano passes us by at lightning speed, ¿no? Especially when you spend those summer months not doing homework and studying for tests, ¿verdad? (right?) Speaking of which, have you ever heard of “Summer learning loss”? Also referred to as “Summer slide”, it is the loss of academic skills and content knowledge that occurs durante los meses del verano (during the Summer months). This phenomenon can vary from person to person depending on a variety of factors, including but not limited to dieta, sleep schedule, and what one chooses to do during time off from school. Summer learning loss can also vary across grade level and subject matter.

Ever since this phenomenon caught the attention of education researchers in 1906, studies have found that on average, American students lose about a month’s worth of academic progress and skills, and that it occurs at a higher rate in high school (Cooper, et. al.––as cited in Quinn, 2014). Let’s harvest our own examples. Remember the Spanish final you crammed for several months back? How much of that stuff do you remember? ¡Eso exactamente! (That's it exactly!)

To combat this loss of knowledge and skills, here are three suggestions to help you return to academic form in the next couple of weeks:

1. Practice solid eating habits. You are what you eat, and if you’re a carb junkie, then tu cuerpo y cerebro (your body and brain) are basically running on empty todo el tiempo. Fruits and vegetables (especialmente vegetales) contain trace minerals, i.e. zinc, iron and manganese, that increase your nervous, muscular and circulatory systems’ capacity to function. And that box of cereal you smashed last weekend during your Fortnite binge: replace it with protein rich foods!
2. Start your morning with a little physical activity. Taking a jog, doing some push-ups, or a yoga flow as soon as you roll out of bed encourages blood circulation in your body and brain.
3. Incorporate whole-brain activity into your daily routine, especially before studying. Your brain has two hemispheres, or sides. The right hemisphere is more creative, the left is more logical. You need both of them for Spanish! Doing an activity that requires balance, like yoga or hiking, or simply passing a tennis ball between your left and right hands, gets the blood flowing between them, helping your brain function at a higher level.

Al cabo de todo, tú tienes el poder de controlar tu destino. ¡Feliz año escolar! ¡A trabajar!

Bibliografía

Quinn, D.M. & Polikoff, M. (2014). Summer learning loss: what is it, and what can we do about it? Brookings Institution. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/summer-learning-loss-what-is-it- and-what-can-we-do-about-it/