Our Maestra is on the roll. I am having a nasty feeling that by the time February's first weekend rolls in, she is going to pile on a lot of material which most of us will not be able to digest. Till last weekend major part of each class would be spent in revising the homework and the last 30-45 minutes would see us covering new material. But today the revision of the homework was done in thirty minutes flat. And then it was the turn of the new portion.
First, we learnt how to ask for and tell time. 'ये बंबई शहर है, यहा टाईम का मतलब है पैसा' I remembered Nana Patekar from the movie 'Taxi no. 9211' :-) We had learnt numbers from 1 too 100 till now. Today we learnt from 101 till 1000. The teacher asked each one of us to write our own mobile numbers by dividing them in 3 groups of 3 digits each and one lone digit at the end. e.g. a number such as 1234567890 would be 123 456 789 0 and so read as ciento veinti tres cuatrocientos cincuenta y seis setecientos ochenta y nueve cero......I hope. :-) 5-6 students were randomly selected to read out their numbers and the rest of us were supposed to write the numbers down. Finally, we were asked to divide each of the numbers in 5 groups of 2 digits each and tell the teacher. We all had loads of fun doing that and all of us were grinning from ear to ear by the time the exercise was over.
Time for some new vocabulary - lugares en una ciudad like library, post office, press, newspaper stall, theatre and departmental store. And as if all this wasn't enough, in the last 15 minutes of the class we were taught how to ask for and give directions. I just hope the Spaniards are better than Indians when it comes to directions :-)
I have come to realize that when this class ends I am going to miss it. Today morning when I was going through my notes while waiting for the teacher, two students (one of them a senior citizen and another a professional) had their books open and were discussing the homework just like kids. 'Did you get question number 5?', 'What is the meaning of this word?' and so on. It is refreshing and energizing to spend two hours every week in an academic environment, not to mention the fact that I have finally taken baby steps towards my long-cherished dream of learning a foreign language.
As 2014 draws to an end, it is one of the few thoughts that I find immensely comforting.
First, we learnt how to ask for and tell time. 'ये बंबई शहर है, यहा टाईम का मतलब है पैसा' I remembered Nana Patekar from the movie 'Taxi no. 9211' :-) We had learnt numbers from 1 too 100 till now. Today we learnt from 101 till 1000. The teacher asked each one of us to write our own mobile numbers by dividing them in 3 groups of 3 digits each and one lone digit at the end. e.g. a number such as 1234567890 would be 123 456 789 0 and so read as ciento veinti tres cuatrocientos cincuenta y seis setecientos ochenta y nueve cero......I hope. :-) 5-6 students were randomly selected to read out their numbers and the rest of us were supposed to write the numbers down. Finally, we were asked to divide each of the numbers in 5 groups of 2 digits each and tell the teacher. We all had loads of fun doing that and all of us were grinning from ear to ear by the time the exercise was over.
Time for some new vocabulary - lugares en una ciudad like library, post office, press, newspaper stall, theatre and departmental store. And as if all this wasn't enough, in the last 15 minutes of the class we were taught how to ask for and give directions. I just hope the Spaniards are better than Indians when it comes to directions :-)
I have come to realize that when this class ends I am going to miss it. Today morning when I was going through my notes while waiting for the teacher, two students (one of them a senior citizen and another a professional) had their books open and were discussing the homework just like kids. 'Did you get question number 5?', 'What is the meaning of this word?' and so on. It is refreshing and energizing to spend two hours every week in an academic environment, not to mention the fact that I have finally taken baby steps towards my long-cherished dream of learning a foreign language.
As 2014 draws to an end, it is one of the few thoughts that I find immensely comforting.
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