Temporal

An extended series of rainy days is called a “temporal,” at least in Costa Rica, but probably here as well. I just haven’t heard people use the word. Mostly they just say, well, it’s the rainy season. It will be like this until March. I’ve mentioned this weather before, but every time it comes around, it seems a bit more intense. Not only have we not seen the sun since sometime on Sunday (that’s Jan.1, 2012), but much of the time visibility has been reduced and rain can start falling at any time. Maya would tell me that now I know what it’s like to live in Portland. I once lived in Seattle. I don’t remember it being like this. Of course, in Seattle the roads don’t turn to slick mud, and there are clothes dryers to handle your laundry. I have very little clothing that is both clean and dry.

After the extended Christmas vacation (we didn’t have a class day from Dec. 21 to Jan. 3), it has been a bit tough re-establishing momentum. I did a review day yesterday and found that the kids mostly did recall the major things we have covered since the beginning of the year. The things they have trouble with may have been mistaken topics to begin with. Prepositions are a bit rough, but I think that’s partly because they are so much from the beginning of the year. But telling time is a huge problem, and I suspect that’s because they can’t tell time on a standard clock in Spanish. Today I started teaching the days of the week, combined with “yesterday, today, tomorrow.” That seemed to go pretty well, but I’m not sure how I’m going to make the words real to my students. Almost as soon as I launched into this topic, I felt as though it was too abstract. Little children don’t pick up the days of the week until they’re pretty far along. On the other hand, days of the week are considered pretty basic foreign language fare. I had been thinking I would combine the days with months, and tie that to numbers by having the kids give their birthdays or birthdates. Now I’m not so sure. I’d have to teach them ordinal numbers from 1-31, and I’m not sure I want to get into that yet.  I’ll have to go back to the curriculum drawing board.

My main goal is to have the kids, at least the ones who care, able to hold some sort of conversation in English before I go. Yesterday marked 5 months left, which is a good chunk of the school year, but not much time. I’m going to have to give some thought to what people talk about, and whether I can get that into my students’ heads. I think the phrase “I like (to)” is going to be a big part of this. I’m not sure where to find out. And maybe the order doesn’t matter as much as a critical mass of words and phrases. I’m trying to get them to ask what time it is, for permission to go to the bathroom, to tell how they feel, and some other odds and ends, in English, so that they get used to the idea that they can. I hope it works.

In other, less interesting, news, I have started the New Year with another round of digestive problems. Fortunately, powerful medication is readily available. I’m just not sure how long I have to take it. Three days seemed to do it last time, but then I was told that 10 pills represent a 5-day course. I don’t think I could have handled 5 days last time. We’ll see how this works out. But one pill, and I already feel a lot better.

I know this isn’t much of an entry, but I’ll try to get my blogging rhythm back. I’ll also try to find some new things worth reporting. And things do tend to come up out of nowhere.