Spanish

At the beginning of this school year Sarah started learning Spanish to satisfy GA requirements for high schoolers to have two years of a foreign language. I wanted to expose the younger girls to some of it also so that they could get a head start with it too. We have a Hispanic family in our church and I know in our society it would be very helpful to know Spanish. Just yesterday, while waiting in line Rachel helped a bank teller with a man that spoke only Spanish. She has learned a good bit over the past few years and was glad to be able to communicate to him to show his driver's license to get his check cashed.
Rachel took the Spanish class at her school just to get it checked off of the requirements list. The class spent most of the year watching movies with Spanish subtitles and learned pretty much nothing. Then when it was time for Rachel to go to Honduras we bought the Rosetta Stone curriculum (yes, very expensive) to help her know more of the language. She did the crash course, but left not ready to converse very well.
When it was time to think about foreign language for Sarah I thought we would just try the Rosetta Stone again and I asked my friend Natalie to check in on her to make sure she was going in the right direction. Natalie lived in Honduras for many years and went to a language school for missionaries and their families. I'm not sure how it happened but over the past school year we have been meeting every week with Natalie to learn, play games and just "do" Spanish. We have all but completely abandoned the Rosetta Stone curriculum. She has been so creative in making up games to teach us and encouraging us to try new words. It is amazing how fun it has become to all of the girls. Every day after lunch I play the Spanish games with the girls and if we don't have time to do them, the girls are disappointed. What started out to be a class for Sarah has become a family experience. I am learning with the girls and am trying out sentences on our Spanish speaking friend at church. He even brought me some work to translate into English to help me more. I'm sure he gets a kick out of a truly Southern girl with an accent try to speak his language. (Hannah's accent is worse than mine though.) So the moral of this story is forget the fancy curriculum, get a friend and jump right in.
And to Natalie - Gracias mi amiga amable. Tu tener intelligente muchisimo. Yo neccisito tu ayuda.