Backpack Mack

I have completed 5 days of immersive Spanish classes at Maximo Nivel Guatemala and my brain is FULL! My classes are 4 hours per day and 99% spoken in Spanish. I feel like I’ve learned more in 5 days than I have in 2-3 months in a traditional classroom setting in the United States. 

Although I have dabbled a lot in more “lightweight” Spanish learning classes (audio tapes/duolingo/etc) I tested into “Basico” but with an accelerated pace. I was placed with one other student and we worked our way through several weeks of content including greetings, verb conjugation, reflexive verbs, future tense and tons of vocabulary. 

That being said, I won’t pretend that it is all sunshine and rainbows. It is hard work and there are times when my instructor speaks so quickly and I am incredibly frustrated that I cannot understand what she’s saying. It would be easy to blame her for my knowledge gaps, or perhaps accuse the program of being flawed in their instruction guidelines. But I remind myself that it is all part of the process. Immersion is like getting thrown into the deep end of a pool and figuring out how to swim. Once you stop panicking, you can actually look around and see all the floaties there to help you until you are ready to do it on your own. I’ve relied on Google translate a TON, but beyond that I’ve leveraged my workbook, the Quizlet flashcard app, I’ve been watching dubbed movies and volunteered to be paired with a local student learning English for extra practice. 

It is a special kind of frustration to not be able to express yourself. I have so much respect for people who learn another language and move to the country where it is spoken and create a life for themselves. 

So I will continue studying and try and give myself grace when I start to feel overwhelmed. I have 20 hours under my belt and I am better now than I was last week. Onward and upward!