My english classes

Speaking a second language is not enough for these days. Living in a global world requires speaking fluently at least two languages, from a big list where we can include Chinese, English, French, German and many others. Due to our proximity to USA and the influence of this country around the world, English is the foreign language with most speakers in Costa Rica.

I just can guarantee that I speak my native language. For many years, I have been taking English classes and I still can’t reach my objective to become bilingual. It not only implies to speak well, but also to use grammar correctly. For 2010 I proposed myself to take English classes again to finally overcome the obstacles from being bilingual.

¿Why is important English learning? ¿What have I done to speak English? ¿How Am I doing it?

English is everywhere; you can see it when you go to the movies, when you listen to music, when you use electronic apparatus and when you socialize with foreign tourists. At work, English is a tool for having a business conversation with suppliers and technical costumer service, and also when reading technical papers of product manual. You can’t runaway; English is not an option, it is a necessity. If you have travel plans for visiting countries different from Latin-America, you can use it everywhere because it’s like a standard.

Since I was a kind, my parents worried about my preparation in a second language. I started my first in Ciudad Quesada in one of the only schools (in that time) who teaches English classes. At third grade I attended to a school in Venecia, near my house without foreign language education but I took extra-classes for a year with a young woman from US with studies in English teaching from England. Years later, I attended to a catholic high school that included some poor quality classes, so I took additional classes focused only in conversation with a lady who lived many years in USA. While my college studies at UCR, I attended for a year to the courses given by “Escuela de Lenguas Modernas” which I think gave me the facility to express myself with more freedom.

At the beginning of year 2010, I proposed myself to resume English classes to preserve what I learned and also to improve my skills towards my main goal: speaking perfectly. Surprisingly ICE gave me the possibility to take English classes again, so that is the reason why I am writing in this blog tonight. My classmates include co-workers, people from my building and some others from Colima and Río Macho. They are nice people; some of them look with lots of enthusiasm to participate actively and some others are a little shy.

Lessons are all day long, but it does not imply that you are going to get bored because the class is very dynamic and activities are changing constantly. It involves some activities from the text book with the participation in conversations about many interest topics like feelings, crimes, luck, school days and success. Activities are also about solving puzzles, listen to conversations and songs.

We receive some of grammar, even when the course is mainly about conversation. On-line homework is part the learning strategy and has the purpose to keep you practicing at home while writing essays and impressions about newspaper articles, songs and other topics referred to those covered by the textbook.

Evaluations every week have helped me to show me some mistakes but. Probably oral presentations have been the most challenging for me due to my stage fright, but it is just a matter of getting used to it.

From my point of view, I can see evident results and I think that I am showing some improvement every week, so I’m going by the right way. I hope my classmates will feel the way I do.