First Spanish Composition

[Gil]

I gave the boys 30 minutes to compose something in Spanish. They worked together and came up with the following--they worked and discussed this composition only en Espanol. We havent don't a lot of grammar via textbooks--yet. They don't really write in Spanish, they composed this orally and then wrote it down.

 

Can anyone read it and give us feedback. We've been working very hard on Spanish this summer and I wanted to see what they could come up with.

 

En el verano puedo hacer mas cosas divertido porque mi padre el trabajo en una escuala y mi padre tiene un horario diferente en elverano tan en los otros tiempos. El horario de mi padre es mas flexible en el verano y pues mi hermano y yo tienen mas tiempo y mas oportunidades por pasatiempos, deportes, y los divertidos en general.
 

[in the summer I can do a lot of fun things because my dad works in a school and my dad has a different schedule in the summer than in the other seasons. My dads schedule es more flexible en the summer and we my brother and I we have more time and more opportunitiyes for hobbies, sports and fun in general.]

ahora, el otono venga y nosotros necesitamos estudiar con mas energia y frequencia. Yo y mi hermano uso el verano para estudiar de matematicas advancia de AoPS y para leer y hablar espanol todos dias. Cuando yo hablo a los personajes hispanico en espanol, ellos puedo entienden mas que no puedo entienden. Mi verbos son debiles y mi gramatica necessita much mas trabajo, pero yo quiero muchisimo and un dia yo voy a hablar espanol con mucho fluencia y mi vocabulario activo sera sufficiente a communicar con las personas. Despues puedo hablar espanol con gramatico bueno y puedo usar las formas de verbos correctamente, voy a aprender mas lengues. Voy a comencer con japonesa.

 

[Now, autumn is coming and we need to study with more energy and more frequency. Me and my brother used the summer to study advanced mathematics from AoPS and to read and speak spanish every dad. When I speak a hispanic people en Spanish, they can understand more than they can't understand. My verbs are weak and my grammar needs a lot more work, but I really want to and one day I will speak Spanish with a lot of fluency and my active vocabulary will be sufficient to communication with people. After I can speak Spanish with good grammar and I can use the verb forms correctly, I'm going to learn more languages. I'm going to start with Japanese.]

[bibiche]

Not bad. Why not give it back to them and have them reread it while looking for problems with accords and conjugations?

[Gil]

Not bad. Why not give it back to them and have them reread it while looking for problems with accords and conjugations?

I would but...I don't know what an accord is. My Spanish isn't much better than theirs. They speak about twice as well as they write--they actually dumbed down what they wanted to say, to constrain it to what they felt comfortable conveying in writing. We've been doing psuedo-immersion Spanish this summer. I had them do this randomly, they don't usually write in Spanish.

 

We don't resume school until September, but I've got to start studying ahead of them at this point, so that I'll be ready to lead them in Spanish once September rolls around.

[bibiche]

Sorry, "accord" is probably not the right word for this in English. Oops. I mean agreement in gender and number. Maybe you can find someone as eager to learn English as your boys are to learn Spanish and work out an exchange where they can correct each others' work. It would probably be beneficial for them in both languages.

[Mabelen]

Sorry, "accord" is probably not the right word for this in English. Oops. I mean agreement in gender and number. Maybe you can find someone as eager to learn English as your boys are to learn Spanish and work out an exchange where they can correct each others' work. It would probably be beneficial for them in both languages.

Correct. Agreement in gender and number as well as verb conjugations are vital in Spanish. You can't go around that and expect real fluency. The conversation exchange method can work really well if both parties are similarly committed. It worked for me really well for my Italian but I was already an adult. I have no experience of conversation exchange with children.

[Gil]

Thanks, I'll try and keep my ear open for that. In conversation with natives, they constantly self correct. Perhaps because they find them cute, but Spanish speakers always talk about how good they speak Spanish and are slow to criticize/correct. I'm hoping to find a few folks who are willing to correct or even better "nitpick" all of our Spanish during conversation. There is a community tutoring program that offers help to Spanish speakers, I'm going to try and get a tutor/mentor for this upcoming year.

 

This mini-essay isn't quite representative of their speaking abilities. They wrote it without preparing or advanced notice. It took them longer to write it down than to speak it. Once they started thinking and rethinking things, they got annoyed and rushed/altered what they were saying. Where as in English they write in a more mature voice than their age, I think that their Spanish writing might be closer to grade level--I'm not sure. One of their most constant mistakes in speaking are verb forms--conjugating properly isn't natural for them yet. They can speak with a native, and they don't need the speaker to slow down nearly as much as they used to. Many times they just respond real time, though sometimes they might ask for clarification or for the speaker to repeat themselves. I don't think they've requested anyone go more slowly in just about a month.

 

I hope to share another composition from them at the end of the month, closer to when we start school again.

[Minerva]

Well done!

 

How about having them go through the essay, pick out the verbs, and then see if they can fix the conjugations.  It really is a fantastic start.