"El Ekeko"
Book Summary -
Note that this is not a complete summary, and was taken from a free write that we did in class to assess the progression of our understanding of Spanish throughout the year. For some perspective, my first free write of the year was 86 words, and this final free write was 316.
Este es un cuento sobre un chico que se llama Paco. Él vive en El Alto en La Paz, una ciudad en el país de Bolivia. Él vive en una casa con su madre, padre, y tres hermanas. Él es un lustrabota en el centro de la ciudad, donde él lustra los zapatos de otras personas. La familia de Paco no tiene mucho dinero, y Paco trabaja mucho por dinero. Él va a escuela y juega fútbol también. Un día, él busca en su armario para botas nuevas porque sus botas son viejas. Él encuentra muchas cosas, pero la cosa más interesante es un talismán de cerámico. La estatua es muy extraña, con ojos grandes y una sonrisa. Paco piensa que es un ekeko. Un ekeko es un talismán para la festival de Alasitas, una celebración de abundancia y buena fortuna. El ekeko tiene el poder a transformar cosas pequeñas a cosas grandes. Pero, él no piensa que es real. La hermana de Paco toma la estatua y le pone la ropa de una muñeca en el ekeko. En la mañana, ¡la ropa es grande! Paco piensa, ¿el ekeko es mágico? Él pone frijoles, pan, y el ekeko debajo de su cama, y en la mañana hay muchos frijoles y un pan entro! ¡Es magnífico! Él va a el mercado y compra muchas cosas pequenas. En el mercado, él ve Nicolás y Mateo, chicos muy crueles. Los chicos toman el ekeko. Pero una bruja camina hacia ellos, y ellos tienen miedo de ella. La bruja le da el ekeko a Paco, y le dice que la estatua tiene poder de leyendas. Pero, el poder es por lo bueno solo, no mal. Paco regresa a su casa y pone el talismán y muchas cosas pequeñas debajo de su cama. Pone una pelota, una muñeca, una patineta, y un bistec debajo de su cama. Las cosas son regalos para su hermana, su madre, su amigo Pepe, y Paco. En la mañana, él encuentra las cosas grandes!
Mi opinion del libro: Me gustó el libro porque el libro me ayudó aprender Español. También, el libro me ayudó acerca de la cultura de Bolivia y la vida de un chico en El Alto. Recomiendo el libro para personas aprendiendo español.
Reflection -
Despite the many challenges of being fully online for Spanish 3 this year, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it the most out of the three years of language I have taken at Animas. Being able to work at my own pace was a great opportunity for me to teach myself a little bit, as well as have the support of the online classroom. One of the most powerful lessons I learned regarded time management; since we only had class once a week, I would often forget about Spanish work until Tuesday evening and ended up scrambling to get it done. Unfortunately, this taught me some bad habits in procrastination that I am still trying to break, because even with the weekly rush to finish everything, I always managed to get it done well. So although it taught me that procrastination is not healthy, it also set me into a pattern in the opposite direction of the way I would like to go in that regard.
This class was not particularly challenging for me, but one thing I definitely struggled with was the free writes. In the first few of these assignments, I struggled to reach 100 words because I had a hard time implementing the content we were learning into coherent sentences. As we continued to do them throughout the year, I developed strategies to help me get longer free writes, such as writing about things I knew a lot about (the book we were reading, the country we were studying, etc.). With the last free write of the year behind me, I feel proud of my growth in that area. One thing I am still struggling with is grammar and conjugations. Without the helpful signs of the in person classrooms, conjugating things was a lot harder for me, even given the online resources. I think this is because even though they were nearby, I couldn’t just look to my left and see the past tense rules displayed in front of me. They were slightly less accessible. This is just me being lazy, and something that I am constantly trying to improve in.
One thing worth noting is that I am going to Costa Rica for my LINK internship this year, and I can’t wait to see how I can apply everything I learned in a Spanish speaking country without Jenny there to help me say things. My goal going into this is to speak Spanish as much as I can, even though my mentor also speaks English. Hopefully being immersed in the language will help me develop a deeper understanding of it, and be able to hold a conversation over more than “los ekekos” in Bolivia. Long term, I hope to become much more fluent in Spanish so that I can travel in Spanish speaking countries with ease, something that has been high on my bucket list all my life.
Thanks for a great year Jenny!
This class was not particularly challenging for me, but one thing I definitely struggled with was the free writes. In the first few of these assignments, I struggled to reach 100 words because I had a hard time implementing the content we were learning into coherent sentences. As we continued to do them throughout the year, I developed strategies to help me get longer free writes, such as writing about things I knew a lot about (the book we were reading, the country we were studying, etc.). With the last free write of the year behind me, I feel proud of my growth in that area. One thing I am still struggling with is grammar and conjugations. Without the helpful signs of the in person classrooms, conjugating things was a lot harder for me, even given the online resources. I think this is because even though they were nearby, I couldn’t just look to my left and see the past tense rules displayed in front of me. They were slightly less accessible. This is just me being lazy, and something that I am constantly trying to improve in.
One thing worth noting is that I am going to Costa Rica for my LINK internship this year, and I can’t wait to see how I can apply everything I learned in a Spanish speaking country without Jenny there to help me say things. My goal going into this is to speak Spanish as much as I can, even though my mentor also speaks English. Hopefully being immersed in the language will help me develop a deeper understanding of it, and be able to hold a conversation over more than “los ekekos” in Bolivia. Long term, I hope to become much more fluent in Spanish so that I can travel in Spanish speaking countries with ease, something that has been high on my bucket list all my life.
Thanks for a great year Jenny!