Pueblo Ingles

For one week I was a volunteer at a language learning program for Spanish adults. There where 20ish Spaniards and 20ish native English speakers. We were all put in a hotel together for a week and forced to speak ONLY ONLY ONLY in English all day for 7 days.

I never thought I would think this, but by the end of it, I had no interest in talking another word. The program was pretty rigorous. We would have breakfast for an hour, and talk. Then we would have 1-1 conversations for about 5 hours. Each one lasted an hour, so 5 every morning. Then we would have lunch and talk some more. A short siesta break, and yes, more talking or theatre activities. Then we'd have dinner and talk even more. It was really fun and I met amazing people, but it was just so much talking.

The Spaniard's improvement in conversation level by the end of the week was truly amazing. And it was nice to give something back to Spain. It has been putting up with my butchered Spanish for 15 months, so I figure it was my time to help them learn English. Or maybe being an English teacher this year helped too... (hopefully)