and abroad.
In addition to working with Professor Milly, every Tuesday at La Universidad Nacional, my fellow exchange students and I would wait at the park for Tico Time. This was a chance for us to connect with the Costa Rican students who were learning English at our university. Not only did I help my fellow amigos learn English, but in return they taught me a variety of palabras ticas. For example, in Costa Rica Que chiva means “Awesome”, mae means “dude”, mejenga is a “soccer game”, and of course pura vida means “life is good”! During my year abroad, it was a rewarding experience for me to watch how far many of my friends came in their English capabilities. With just an hour of practice outside of the classroom every week, they made outstanding progress.
As a language learner myself, I have found that the best way to learn a new language is by engaging in meaningful conversations with native speakers. Language is much more easily acquired in the process of communicating this way. For example, while learning Spanish in Costa Rica I kept a small pocket journal where I wrote down new words and phrases that my fellow ticos taught me. Soon enough, I had my own pocket dictionary filled with colloquial sayings like plancha la oreja ("iron the ear"), which means to go to sleep, and of course I wrote down the fun palabras ticas like mae.
Not only did integrating with my new community allow me to share my passion for language learning with my amigos, but it also helped me to become a better E.T.A. and Spanish speaker.
