Language Barrier

La Universidad de Salamanca was my first college experience ever, and my 5 years of Spanish classes previous to this had not prepared me for what was to come. I had three classes, 4 hours, every week day of nothing but Spanish. The first few days this was really hard because I could understand almost everything, but it was hard for me to respond comfortably in anything but the present tense. However, I soon realized that being force to speak perfect Spanish everyday was the best way to become fluent. These classes were a lot different from anything I had ever been in before. It was a new style of teaching where the teacher acted more like a friend you were having lunch with than someone just lecturing you. Every day we had a new topic or tense to learn, but it never felt too hard or overwhelming because the classes felt so comfortable and the teachers were so friendly and helpful. Another big difference was that all the students in the class all came from different countries, all speaking different languages. This made the class a lot more interesting on many levels. Firstly, it allowed us to learn about other cultures and social norms in places other than just Spain. This also meant that everyone’s common denominator was that we spoke Spanish, which meant we had to speak it all the more because it was the only way we could understand each other. I found that having complete immersion into a language was the best way to learn and fully understand it. When you have no choice but to speak a language it’s hard to not become good at it.