I started the day off doing my morning chores. Played with my computer, which today worked like there had not been anything wrong with it - e-mail, online banking, everything worked. Went out and found lavandero, a place to drop off my laundry -it will be ready tomorrow (no laudromats for me on this trip). Went to the supermarket and to the cheese store down the block, where I got a nice piece of Mantego cheese.
I'm sitting here eating cheese, olives, drinking wine and listening to Mercedes Sosa, a wonderful Argentine folk singer.
Took the subway (subte) to school - very easy to do - I had to change trains, but it was all very clear.
Found a nice restaurant on the way to school where I had lunch. I ordered something Larry and I had on Sunday called Provoleta, which was a delicious piece of grilled provolone cheese with olive oil and some oregano and other spices - it was super delicious. So I ordered Provoleta Milanesa, forgetting that anything "a la Milanesa" is breaded and fried. I got two piece of provolone, breaded and fried with a side of salad. It was very good, but not as good as what we got on Sunday in San Telmo. Still I liked the restaurant and returned there with two classmates, Anna and Mike, and Larry, after school today.
We were surprised to find we had a substitute teacher already on the 2nd day of school. Our teacher from yesterday, Marcela, was not due to teach today, we have her Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Today we were supposed to meet Fernanda, but apparently she has a cold.
So, we got this young revolutionary-looking guy named Martin.
Martin liked to talk. He was very intelligent and knew a lot about the Spanish that they speak in Buenos Aires, called lunfardo. It is a very colloquial form of Spanish that has influences from indigenous languages, Portuguese, Italian, French and even English. He told us we should learn some of this language because if we don't speak this way, people will know we are not from here (and perhaps take advantage of us).
After his lengthy introduction to today's lesson and why we were going to do what we were going to do, we went to the computer room, where he set each of us up on a computer with headsets. He had us open Google and You Tube in two separate browsers. We googled the lyrics of a song, and then found a video of the song on You Tube. We watched the video first, then watched again and read the lyrics, and then watched one more time, and finally wrote down words we had questions about.
It was really a great idea, but we were in over our heads. We didn't have enough information about the songs we were listening to and the language was so colloquial, the videos didn't effectively tell the stories, so we had very little to go on to figure out the new vocabulary, and it didn't help to ask him because each explanation took about 10-15 minutes with many sidetracks that just confused things.
I learned a way to use new technology like You Tube with my students, but will definitely do some work with them so that their experience is not like mine was today.
One of the students excused himself halfway through the class and said he had to do some work and left. The rest of us stayed and tried to get what we could from the lesson. Martin spoke very fast and it was difficult to even interrupt him to ask questions to clarify what he was talking about.
After our break we met a new student - her name is Christina and she is from X'ian, China. She is working in Buenos Aires and spoke Spanish very fluently. She was confused about the vocabulary we were discussing though, since she hadn't listened to the songs, and also the vocabulary was a little slangy, and maybe not that common.
After class, Mike, Anna and I met up with Larry and we went to the restaurant where I ate lunch. Then Larry and I went to a cultural center and got a calendar. We saw some films that we want to see and from there walked to Santa Fe Avenue, where we had delicious ice cream in a very fancy ice cream shop (I'm going to post a picture).
I'm supposed to be doing my homework for tomorrow, which I will do as soon as I finish this blog. I have to write description of a film and do some other homework which involves filling in blanks with different verb forms. Both assignments are challenging for me and I'm not looking forward to them, which is why I'd rather be blogging, drinking wine, eating cheese and listening to Mercedes Sosa. But, my homework awaits.
Chau.
No comments:
Post a Comment