And she is slowly dragged under...

Ok, so not that this has anything to do with learning Spanish, but it does have to do with student teaching. Between subbing quite a few days in February, student teaching, learning Spanish and being a mom to 3 young girls, I am feeling a wee bit overwhelmed. I knew February was going to be hard.

Back to learning Spanish. So, I've been subbing in bilingual classrooms. Kindergarten is by far the hardest. I have a kindergartener of my own, and let me tell you, sometimes even I don't understand her. Her thoughts sometimes come out of the blue with absolutely no context attached. She hasn't mastered the "r" sound yet, which can make it hard for other people to understand her. Add to these issues, the language barrier, and I am sometimes at a loss for understanding them. On the other hand, third graders are delightfully easy to understand. We can code-switch constantly and understand each other with near perfection. If I ask what something means, they can tell me, either in English, or by explaining in Spanish. The younger kids don't know how to do that - they can't really understand that I need their help to know what they are saying. It's an interesting developmental difference. In Kindergarten and first grade, everything is done in Spanish, only occasional directions are given in English, and maybe 5 to 10 minutes of basic routines (the calendar and the like). So, my use of Spanish is nearly constant.

Interestingly, I have found that no matter what grade I am teaching, my Spanish is MUCH more fluent by the afternoon than it is in the morning. By the afternoon, I feel like I can say nearly anything I want to, almost without thinking. If I'm not consciously monitoring myself, my thoughts are more likely to come out in English in the mornings.

I also notice how very tired I am after a day with the youngest kids. Not only because they are less self-sufficient, but because of my greater use of Spanish throughout the day. Those are the days when I come home that my brain insists on continuing to think in Spanish all the way until bedtime. And even then, I often have trouble falling asleep because particular phrases from the day are circling around in my head. By the time I wake the next morning, the effect is gone. I know it means good things are happening to be thinking in my second language, but honestly, it's annoying. I wish I could turn it off when I want to. The kids likely feel the same, but have less understanding and knowledge of the process of language learning. I wonder if anyone ever talks to them about all this...