Sunday, July 17, 2011

Thursday, July 14, 2011

A day of classes.  Getting to know the local culture:
Begonia gave us a good overview today of ELE (Spanish as a Foreign Language) programs in Spain and how they relate to what were are doing in the US.  We work on grammar exercises and share some teaching methods. 
Francisco gives us an introduction to the CCOO (Comisiones Obreras), the labor union that many employees of educational institutions belong to in Spain.  Every Thursday, teachers and other employees demonstrate during the recess at Deusto to bring attention to the university’s decision to freeze all the workers’ pay.  We then discuss Spanish newspapers and their role in Spanish society, which seems to be a bigger role than they play in the US.  He also explains the new European system of ranking language proficiency on a scale of A, B,C; each letter have levels 1 and 2, and A-1 reflecting a beginner and C-2 reflecting a native speaker who can teach the language anywhere.  Europe established this system around 2002 so that language proficiency could be agreed upon from country to country. 
Ana continued covering the Spanish culture questions, which keeps us engaged as we discover what we know, don’t know and would like to know.  She includes everything that might be included in a civics, history and Spanish culture class.    

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