Learning through immersion is the goal of MAMS’ language classes, so in Intermediate Spanish, we are only allowed to speak in Spanish. In the class, we would write simple essays to strengthen our ability to synthesize information into elementary words that we learned in class, and we would read Spanish novels and watch movies to familiarize ourselves with the language. The class is relatively manageable even though the concept of only communicating in Spanish seems intimidating.
The assignment is to write an essay to describe one’s residence in Spanish using a simple sentence structure. Since this is the first essay in Spanish class, the writing is very rudimentary as it only contains simple sentences to describe a location in one’s house. Furthermore, one can use a dictionary to expand one’s Spanish vocabulary to help with the description, but the sentences would generally follow a straightforward pattern of pointing out an object and describing its attributes in that specific room. Perfect Spanish grammar is not expected in this essay, but the students were encouraged to try their best to follow the language’s conventions.
The second essay in Spanish class is more advanced but is still quite uncomplicated. The essay required the usage of reflexive verbs, which are actions that the noun will take upon itself, to describe one’s daily routine. In my second essay, my Spanish skills had improved because I had made significantly less grammatical errors than my first one, but there are still some noticeable errors in my work.