College Encounters Box Set by Maeve Williams

Author:Maeve Williams [Williams, Maeve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-20T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

Arthur

“Today, mis estudiantes, we discuss the pretérito imperfecto also known as the imperfect tense,” my voice echoed through the large room. Students followed me with their eyes as I paced slowly back and forth across the beige tiled floor. “This tense,” my finger waved in the air, stabbing into my hand as I made my point, “Will lay the bedrock for most of our discussions in this course. It is essential in many everyday discussions.” I swept back my hair and watched as students scribbled furiously in their notebooks, hanging on my every word like gold was spilling from my lips. Their attention brought a smile curving up my lips. This class would be a good one, potentially very good.

It was my favorite time of the semester, the start: 50, new, bright-eyed students stared at me, their minds empty and just waiting to be expanded into the wonderful world of the Spanish language. They sat in their small, wooden desks experiencing Spanish through a whole different lens. A lens that no teacher had shown them before, and I doubted would show them again. Most teachers simply taught a language, but I, I let them experience it. This was the arena where I fought masterful battles against ignorance.

I’d always been a bit of a whiz kid at languages, mastering three by the time I turned 15, and mastering two more by the time I finished college. It had all started with the hot, lazy summers I spent with my Uncle Miguel in Mexico. My parents sent me there every year to take care of the older man who could no longer get around easily. It was good for my education, they would argue.

Uncle Miguel spoke very little English but still expected me to understand his every word. In turn, I learned out of necessity, quickly consuming language books like other kids my age consumed ice cream. After Spanish I learned French, then Portuguese, and so on. I was fluent in five languages and was capable in two others. Some might call me a prodigy, but I didn’t consider myself one. It wasn’t that I was smarter than other people or had a special mind or any other nonsense like that. Languages just came naturally to me; and once you learned one, the others came much more quickly. However, after all these years, Spanish was still my favorite language. It was the language I learned first, the one I fell in love with. So, when given the choice of what course to teach, I chose Spanish.

“Pretérito imperfecto,” I repeated, writing it down in large, block letters on the chalkboard. The chalk dragged across the board as I drew a long, vertical line and intersected it with two other horizontal lines. “Now,” I said, continuing my pacing, “Who can tell me what the yo form of the pretérito imperfecto is?” There was no immediate answer. “Come on now, someone please.” A few more moments of silence passed.

My eyes searched the crowd, trying to guess who would answer the question.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.