Cinco de Mayo

One of my jobs is being a private tutor of Spanish and German students.  Currently I have 6 Spanish students.  For a while I have wanted to host some language nights for my students and last Thursday I finally did just that.  I hosted a dinner at my house for my students and had a friend come over and make authentic Mexican enchiladas.

It was a lot of fun, I invited my students over and they could each bring one friend.  Three were able to come and one brought a friend.  So we were a group of 6 (4 students, my friend and myself).

Going into the evening I was kind of nervous that my students would get nervous and not want to talk much.  I had asked them to prepare a few questions in Spanish to ask my friend that evening.  They were also going to be required to speak in Spanish some with my friend and each other.  In preparation for the evening, I made copies of different pages out of the 50 Most Beautiful People edition of People en Español.  I was going to have the girls look through them and choose one, then "introduce" their person in Spanish to the group.

It turned out I was nervous for no reason.  After we dished up my friend gave them a brief outline of what Cinco de Mayo is all about in Spanish and the girls followed her very well.  I think they impressed themselves at how well they did understand.  Then they commented on the food (which was very well received) to my friend in Spanish.  They started in English, but after asking them to say it in Spanish they were quick to try their hand at it.  After a while I had them go around the table and "introduce" the person on the picture they chose.  Throughout the evening I made sure that each of them had asked at least one question in Spanish.

The whole evening was a great learning experience for them.  They were able to to see that they can make mistakes and still be understood.  During our tutoring sessions I tend to be somewhat picky with their Spanish, so this opportunity to show them mistakes are not bad was great.

It even seems that the evening inspired some of my students with their Spanish.  It's only natural to be more motivated after having an opportunity to use Spanish in a more real situation.