This is ’emigre’ week, when traditionally, a series of events have been put on for people who return to the village for August (perhaps it is felt that people who have moved to Barcelona, Madrid etc, need an exhibition of cha-cha-cha dancing so as not to feel too bored). The activities are geared to all ages, with many being for children (those starting and 8 or 9 in the evening, for instance!). You will notice that on Sunday there is a mass for the emigrants (9 in the evening) following by the Aquelarre, which is the raising of the devil, which is at the convent at 11. Tonight there is a exhibition of dancing, which we might go to and tomorrow afternoon there is a ‘ruta de la tapa’, which is a sort of tapas trail around the bars. A tapas crawl. We’ve not been to this yet, these activities are quite family orientated and, with many family and friends returning to the village for the first time since last year, it is quite busy. We may, however go to the ‘baile’ tomorrow evening.
I’ve started English coaching again. Which I truly, truly hate. This year I have three, two youngsters twice a week and one other twice a week. The two little ones just sit there and stare at me and I have to stop myself from poking them to see if they are alive. I’ve found that the best thing to do with them is to ask them to say something in Spanish before they say it in English – this way I know that a/ they are alive and b/ the understand. So, I point at a dog, for instance, and they say ‘perro’ and then ‘dog’. I’m not supposed to do it this way as young children aren’t supposed to translate, their English vocabulary is incremental. So they are supposed to think ‘dog’ and not think ‘perro translates to dog’. The translating thing is what we adults do, which slows everything down and makes it more difficult, which is why children are supposed to pick up languages well. They are learning new words all the time, so foreign words are no different. Well, that’s the principle, anyway.
One of the youngsters is actually quite good, so in the last session I asked Ian if he could spend 10 minutes with him while I spent some time with the other, who probably knows the words in her head, but won’t or can’t say them. Anyway, believe it or not, Ian actually spent 30 minutes and had taught the youngster to count into his thousands and had done telling the time revision. I, however, was doing counting to 10 and days of the week. ‘W’s are a great problem for them .- there are no ‘w’s in Spanish. Oh, yes, interesting W= “double u” in English, in Spanish it translates as “double V“.