My name is Beata and I have been volunteer teaching ESL classes at the Arlington Hills Learning Center since September 2010. A few months ago my students and I were talking about Halloween in the United States and one of my Spanish speaking students shared with me that the word for haunted house in Spanish was called Casa de la Bruja. I repeated this phrase a couple of times in my mind. It seemed easy to me and I thought I memorized it but by the time I got home that night I had already forgotten it.
These were only a few new words and I couldn’t believe I didn’t remember them. This made me realize that learning a foreign language is not as easy as some may think and even the easiest thing can be a challenge. English is my second language too but throughout the years I have forgotten how tough it was for me to learn it at times and I have been taking for granted the ability to speak the language. This experience put things into perspective for me and made me realize that learning a few words in a new language is not that easy. I appreciate my student’s efforts and hard work a lot more. I admire my students and value them and am amazed by how hard they try and learn English. During the class I’ve been spending a lot more time on new vocabulary. On that one cold October night I learned that remembering a few words in a new language is not as easy as it seems.
