Clases y profesores locos

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My class schedule is as follows:

Monday and Tuesday- 9-12
Wednesday and Thursday - 9-1:30
Friday - Nada

A pretty sweet deal, although we are given more homework than I’d expected - already 50 pages to read in Spanish and a paper to write! But I’m sure it’ll help, so I shouldn’t complain. After school I’ve gotten into a cycle of coming home for lunch, doing a few things that need to be done, then going to hang out with friends. But here are brief descriptions of my classes:

Pronunciation and Grammar - This class is actually with a woman from Mexico, who had us say ridiculous tongue-twisters in Spanish after classifying and dissecting every possible sound in the Spanish language (I don’t know when I’m ever going to need to know that the “z” sound is called a “fricativa”)

Communicative Spanish and Grammar - I still don’t know what the overarching theme is to the class, because we haven’t done one specific thing. One day we analyzed a poem and another we got down to gritty grammar details.

Literature and Theater - On Thursday in this class we had to do a sort of interpretive dance. How does this relate to the subject? I have no idea. But then the teacher told us that we have to make our own interesting movement while reading a Chilean poem. Maybe this kind of, sort of, relates now. I don’t know. My personal belief is that the teacher - a man in his thirties who talks like a Spanish thespian - got rejected from some acting school and simply needs a place to pour out all his acting desires. I am thinking this because, towards the end of that class, he moved around and stood on a chair and recited some Chilean lyrics. A one-man show.

Conversation and writing - The teacher is a bespectacled man in his late twenties, can always be seen wearing a brown suit, and is a complete square. Or maybe we just haven’t gotten to know him yet. He is highly opinionated (he spoke of his dislike of Neruda for a straight five minutes), claims to not have any free time due to his studies, and acts like he’s a professional middle-aged man. On the first day we wrote a short piece about what our dreams are, then on the following day he proceeded to read all our papers aloud, criticizing the majority of them. Luckily for him, and for the rest of us too, he has a slight sense of humor. Perhaps dry, but still apparent.

Contemporary Chilean History - We have this class only one period per week, taught by a lovely woman who seems very knowledgeable of the subject. I am the most excited for this class because I’ve always loved history, but Chilean history in particular has been fascinating me for the past few months.

I think that’s all of them. During orientation week there was a placement test for different Spanish levels. I was placed in group three, which requires the least attention, but this also means that the professors speak quickly and don’t care to translate anything. Therefore I miss much info and am always confused. But perhaps that will change with time…

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