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san miguel tagged articles (0-50 of 75)

  • Learning Spanish Part Sixteen: This Time Do It Right! - I've been thinking about this lady in San Miguel de Allende. I don't know her well. I've never met her, actually, but we have corresponded. She told me that she's tried learning Spanish.
  • Living In Mexico: Sugar And Spice But Not Always Nice Part 5 - There is a great restaurant in town where I love to eat steak. It is cheap, though they don't offer the best cuts of meat. However, the steak is tender, comes with a load of sides, and is cooked perfectly for my tastes. It is a popular place and listed in all the guidebooks. I've even referred people to it. The ambience is 20th-century jazz and very classy. The location is also perfect and easy as pie to find.
  • Living In Mexico: Sugar And Spice But Not Always Nice Part 3 - To be honest with you, I don't see why more Gringos in Guanajuato aren't getting ripped off when trying to rent, or God forbid, buy a house on their own. It never occurred to us to move here without as much Spanish under our belts as possible. We had a high degree of fluency BEFORE coming. I find it miraculous that those who move here without any Spanish are able to find housing. Yet, they do come and they aren't speaking Spanish. Tell me what you would have done in this circumstance: With little-to-no linguistic ability you find a landlord with whom you manage to communicate. She shows you the apartment she has for rent. You love it and have to rent it.
  • Mexico As A Concept And Not A Reality Part 2 - It has been the Prime Living Locations such as the Lake Chapala area, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende, Cuernavaca, Mazatlán, and others to which Gringos have been attracted. Because they came in droves and droves, the Mexicans in these cities had to adapt to serve the Gringos. Thus something different, something that had never before existed, arose.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Five: The Monitor Hypothesis - Dr. Krashen explains that this idea, The Monitor Hypothesis, shows how language learning (grammar) affects language acquisition. This is, according to Krashen, the useful outcome of learning grammar. It acts as a "monitor" of spoken language. Krashen postulates that this monitor brings refinement and correctness to speech. It acts to correct errors in speaking the second language. He also suggests there are three kinds of people who use The Monitor Hypothesis to one degree or another. There are those who consistently use the monitor to correct their speech. There are those who never learned grammar or choose not to use grammar to monitor their speech. Then, there are those who use their deliberately learned grammar in an appropriate manner in the monitoring of their speech.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-four: The Acquisition-learning Hypothesis - Dr. Stephen Krashen's foundational principle in his theory of Second Language Acquisition is called "The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis." In this idea, a distinction is made in that wonderfully exciting and gaiety-galore world of linguistics and language pedagogy between learning a language and acquiring it.
  • Living In Mexico: Sugar And Spice But Not Always Nice Part 4 - You and your business partner have been working your tails off trying to get a bunch of modern, Mexican-style duplexes off the ground. You've poured too much money to think about into hiring Mexican workers to build this duplex complex.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Three: Language Learning Versus Language Acquisition - In the field of second language acquisition, Stephen Krashen, Ph.D, is a name that rises above the academic din that usually begins when the subject of Language Acquisition versus Language Learning is brought up. The noise becomes even more deafening when someone, such as myself, would dare to report how the theories of Dr. Krashen have affected his personal adventure in trying to achieve the highest possible degree of spoken fluency. Without at least one Ph.
  • Learning Spanish: The Natural Order Hypothesis - In second language acquisition research conducted in 1974-75, 1980 and 1987, it was postulated that the acquisition of grammatical forms followed a natural and predictable order. How this happens is contingent upon multiple factors. The learner's age and the learner's circumstances seemed not to be a significant influence on this natural order. Dr. Krashen makes the point that this does not mean some sort of curriculum should be devised based on this order. Krashen's entire point seems to be that there is a difference between the conscious learning of grammatical structures and the unconscious acquisition of speech, no matter the language.

  • Learning Spanish: The Affective Factor - The chief problem for most Americans who want to learn Spanish but who don't succeed is the Affective Factor. Plainly put, this means the emotional issues; that is, adults become freaked out at the thought. The fear of getting put on the spot and embarrassed is just too much to bear.
  • Learning Spanish Part Nineteen: The Audiolingual Method - This method of second language instruction was a further development or evolution of The Direct Method. World War II rose up and slapped the U.S. government in its linguistically challenged face, waking it to the need and definite lack of language competency to deal with the other nations of the world. Apparently, the U.S. continues to find itself in this position with International conflicts.
  • Learning Spanish: Intercambios - What got me started on an Intercambio jag was learning how Mexicans in the tourist industry on Mexico's Gold Coast learn English and achieve an amazing level of proficiency. They do it by engaging in Intercambios!
  • Living In Mexico: It's The Rainy Season And I'm Bored - We've been holed up in the house pretty much now for two weeks and counting. We venture out between downpours. Such is life in Central Mexico during the rainy season. Really, there has not been as much rain as we had last year by mid-June. It is, however, overcast, grey, and miserable. It's also cold. So, here we are trying to amuse ourselves until Guanajuato's "near-perfect weather" decides to resurface, which will be sometime in October. To amuse myself, I was reading several sources I have in our casita trying to find some ideas about which to write.
  • Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 5 - To maximize our brain's ability to store visual and auditory impressions in the target language, we must constantly, each day, create an atmosphere in which we are hearing and seeing the language we seek to acquire in an immersion situation. This is not only possible to do in a country in which the target language is not spoken but is being accomplished all the time.
  • Learning Spanish Part Eleven : Taking Classes In Spanish - If you have successfully completed at least The Learnables and The Pimsleur Spanish, Learning Spanish Like Crazy courses, you are ready for the formal study of Spanish (i.e., grammar). I know this is very costly. I know because I’ve paid the price myself for these courses. But what do you want? Do you want to become proficient in the language or do you want to start with formal courses that do not teach you spoken fluency? With the former, your investment pays off.
  • Learning Spanish Part Eighteen: The Direct Method Of Language Instruction - Realizing that The Grammar Translation Method of second language instruction did not work to impart spoken proficiency in the target language, in the late 1800's, The Direct Method surfaced in language instruction. The need for a system that worked to teach spoken competence is what drove those to create The Direct Method.
  • The Gringolandizing Of Mexico-pt 1 - The literature that exists in book form and especially in online newsletters and magazines presents to the "Move-To-Mexico Wannebee" Mexico as an Image and not Mexico as it Really Is. I found an excellent example of this in an email featuring a popular living-in-Mexico magazine that appeals to the potential expat to Mexico.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Two: Suggestopedia - Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychologist, introduced what he undoubtedly thought an original and brilliant premise: "… students naturally set up psychological barriers to learning - based on fears that they will be unable to perform and are limited in terms of their ability to learn." Anyone who has ever taught American Junior High school could have told him that. Adults, particularly, have what I call, "the embarrassment factor" when it come to learning a new language. The thought of losing face is a hindrance to learning a language. Lozanov held the idea that the human brain could retain and process much more if a more ideal learning environment (conditions) could be achieved. A kind of hypnosis-like hocus-pocus was thought to help the learner overcome self-perceived limitations.
  • Living In Mexico: Everyone Loves The Theater! - If you haven't been following my articles plastered all over the Internet, what I've been writing about with much alacrity is how life for the American expat in Mexico basically falls into two classifications. First, there are the Expats who actually live in the trenches.
  • Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 2 - The place most worth considering where instruction in how to learn a second language abounds just might surprise you. Africa is the place where more people are multilingual than anywhere else in the world. Thousands of her people speak multiple dialects, different languages in which they conduct all manner of business, multiple native tribal languages, and colonial languages.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty: The Silent Way Method - A most bizarre philosophy of education called "Discovery Learning," based partly on the educational ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Dewey, led to The Silent Way Method of Second Language acquisition. It also enjoyed the support of psycho-babblists (psychologists) Piaget, Bruner, and Papert. Seymour Papert said, "You can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it." Though it is a nice-sounding axiom, I am reminded of the countries of the world in which this philosophy of education does not reign supreme. The students in these countries overtake our kids in almost every academic subject.
  • Learning Spanish Part Seventeen: The Translation Method Of Language Instruction - The grammar translation method of second language acquisition is virtually the only method used in most language courses taught in classrooms all over the world. It is also known as The Classical Method. This method was developed over centuries to teach classical languages. Latin and Greek were seen as important "dead languages" to learn in order to read ancient texts, understand the origins and basics of the grammar and vocabulary of modern languages as well as the influences Latin and Greek had on them.
  • Want To Retire Or Work In Mexico? You'd Better Read This! - Let me shoot straight from the hip. No fancy introductions to this article, no witty sayings, no clever expressions, no wildly used adjectives. Just plain talk about what you will find if you are planning your retirement in Mexico or if you are coming here to work. You will find two basic groups of expatriates in Mexico.
  • Ebooks And The Factor Of Fear - “Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are.
  • Guanajuato: Too Many False Expectations - A friend of mine told me about a conversation she had with a person she knows in one of the Mexican Prime Living Locations on the west coast of Mexico.
  • Learning Spanish Part Ten : Even More Horsing Around - There are two additional courses that I recommend. In fact, they are so effective that these, along with The Learnables, I credit with helping on my road to a high degree of spoken fluency. These courses are Pimsleur Spanish and Learning Spanish Like Crazy. Without this trio of courses I would not be where I am today linguistically living in Mexico for going on five years. These are two of the most popular home study courses that, if you believe the press put out by the folks at Learning Spanish Like Crazy, are in competition with one another. I don't think that the case, however, you will hear all manner of references to Pimsleur as "out-dated" or "teaches vocabulary that is no longer used.
  • Learning Spanish Part Two : Some Solutions - “Foreign language learning is not something that happens overnight; it takes a commitment of time and money. U.S. schools compound the problem by waiting too long to start foreign language instruction. According to ACTFL Professional Programs Director Elvira Swender, U.S. students often start learning foreign languages at puberty, “an age at which their brains are least receptive to language learning.” Swender also notes the relative unimportance that schools assign to languages.
  • Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 6 - Most folks, when they set out to study a new language, begin by enrolling in Spanish I at their local Junior College. This is not the way to begin. In fact, the formal learning about the language in a course at the JuCo is about 5 years away from where you are at if you've had no experience at acquiring the target language. You begin by listening.
  • Learning Spanish Part Nine : Still Looking For That Horse - What do we know so far? We found the best approach to language learning is to learn Spanish the very same way you learned your native tongue. Lots and lots of intensive listening without speaking comes first. This is how you learned your native language. This is how children instinctively approach learning a second language. By the time speaking comes, you will have mastered the fundamentals of the target language.
  • Mexico As A Concept And Not As A Reality Part 1 - Most, if not all, Americans who decide to move to Mexico to "get away from it all" seem to do so based on the merits of at least two books, a handful of websites, some seminars (in the Guadalajara area), and a host of chat rooms and forums whose themes are how wonderfully cheap, relaxing, easy, and convenient it will be living in Mexico. These sources also paint a picture of the Mexican people that is, for lack of better words, a picturesque, pastoral heaven-on-earth population of saints who have been sitting around all their lives just waiting for the opportunity to serve the first American who comes their way.
  • Best Hotels In Cozumel - The Caribbean Island gem that is now becoming a hot tourist destination awaits your exploration. If you have not heard of Cozumel before, then it is about time you get yourself familiarized with this beauty. It’s an island gem in the Caribbean long before Cancun has ever been popularized. The exotic and pristine beaches, unspoiled nature as well as inland ruins have this place a tourist hot spot beyond compare. You can easily relax in the tranquil and peaceful atmosphere prevailing in Cozumel, it has only one town called San Miguel and it permeates a sense of history and culture, rich because of the Mayan strongholds on the mainland.
  • When Gringos Attack - I thought I would write another article about a subject that's been near and dear to my heart since the wife and I moved to Central Mexico. We are here in the Colonial City of Guanajuato, where we've lived for more than five years and counting. It has been interesting to say the least.
  • Don't Declare War: Opine! - It is very interesting to note how someone responds to what I've written about Gringolandia and its inhabitants, Gringolandians. Almost without exception, the usual screed in response to what I've always proclaimed as just "my thoughts, my opinions, my editorializing on my life in central Mexico" come in the form of personal attacks on me, the author. I cannot say I've ever received even a handful of responses in which people have bothered to at least try to offer some sort of well-reasoned counter-argument. That's all I've ever asked: if you disagree, then fine and dandy.
  • A Brief Look At Mexican Food History - Briefly examining the extraordinary world of Mexican food history can be traced back to 1521 when the Spaniards first reached the shores of the might Yucatan. After nearly three centuries of Spaniard rule, and thanks to Miguel Hidalgo shouting his grito: “Mexicanos! Viva Mexico! Viva la Independencia!” the cuisine we know today was as different as the culture of this country compromised of a free people. Intermarriage between the mestizos and the Spanish from centuries past had left a new people with a proud new heritage.
  • Living In Mexico: Where Did That Bus Driver Go? - Gringolandians, those living in Gringo enclaves, live such isolated and bizarrely separate lives from the Mexicans in the same town that they have on more than one occasion called me an absolute liar for the things I've reported happening in the Mexican city where I live. One thing with which they take particular exception is what I've written about buses. I've reported the incidents in which I've been hit by buses as the result of being shoved off the dangerously narrow sidewalks in the city of Guanajuato.
  • Mentor For Hire Services Eases Your Move To Mexico - Sometimes I marvel at how my wife and I arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico, with so little Spanish and with so few cultural skills. Somehow we managed to survive some pretty severe bumps in the expatriation road.
  • Learning Spanish Part Three : Why Acquire A Second Language? - Why should an American learn a foreign language in the 21st century? What and where is the need?
  • Learning Spanish Part Twelve : Total Immersion Courses In Mexico? - Going to the host country of the target language has always taken on a sort of mythical quality. It has been believed that you could not learn a foreign language unless you went to the country associated with the target language and engaged in something called Total Immersion. Total Immersion is NOT a protracted amount of time of traditional language learning instruction in the target language’s country. Coming to Mexico and studying Spanish using traditional language learning methods is NOT a Total Immersion program. It bears repeating once again: What is not commonly known is most of these university-level programs require that you have at least 4 semesters of the target language before going abroad.
  • Not Knowing Spanish And Living In Mexico? A Dangerous Mix - If you happen to have an interest in expatriation and are targeting Mexico as a possibility, here is some of the banter you most certainly will read on the forums: "To Learn Spanish or Not To Learn Spanish, That is the Question!" I fall, of course, on the "You've got to learn Spanish" side of the fence. My main arguments in my columns have been that you can never, ever learn the culture of Mexico without the access to the Cultural Portal--the language! But, my arguments generally, not always, fall on deaf ears.
  • Learning Spanish Part Six : More On Conversation Classes - Think about this very seriously for a moment. If you have children, just think what degree of spoken fluency your child had when you first packed him off to first grade. Think of all he could understand and say before he ever started his formal education.
  • Learning Spanish Part Seven : How To Begin - The Horse, as I wrote previously, is spoken fluency. I made the point that long before they go off to first grade, children already have a high degree of spoken fluency in their native tongue before they learn the parts of speech or memorize grammar rules. It is my contention, and the premise of this book, this is exactly what you need long before you enroll in a formal foreign language course.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-one: Why Talk About Methods? - My purpose in this series (which I failed to make clear, apparently, from the beginning) has been to do two things. One is to show the progression of second language acquisition instruction in its historical development through 350-word articles. The second is see who is still using these methods, if any are using them at all. The point I've wanted to make regarding the Translation Method of Second Language learning is that though in its strictest sense it may not be used today to teach second language acquisition, I believe a version of it still is being used, only now, there is a conversation component added to the translating of written text.
  • Learning Spanish Part Eight : Some Really Bad Science! - So just where did this hideous stereotype about adults learning foreign language originate? It came from some very old science. There used to be a theory on “brain development” from the 1960’s which taught that there was a “crucial period” an individual had before the brain lost its “plasticity,” making learning a second language too difficult. (Lenneberg, 1967) It was a believed if you didn’t get your second language learning done before puberty, your goose was pretty well cooked. Modern studies have shown though some differences between how a child and an adult learns a second language do exist, the older learner has the distinct advantage.
  • There's No Reality, Only Perceptions - It has occurred to me lately just how the filters through which we see and read events determine how we evaluate and react to them.
  • Living In Mexico: Fight Well, Love Better - Though a conservative, I read liberal points of view. I do so for two reasons. One, their views help me refine my own. The second reason is that I owe it to "the other side" to be able to fairly and accurately characterize their position on an issue with which I take exception. Not to do so and then try to argue against that liberal position is dishonest, unfair, and unthinking.
  • Living In Mexico: Gringolandia Denial - I cannot begin to imagine what life must be like in isolated little enclaves where the inhabitants have only one another for socializing. In areas like Guanajuato that still have such few Gringolandians, the "Social Incest" (as the southeast Asian locals used to say the Americans there committed) must be incredibly horrid. At least in San Miguel de Allende there are enough Gringos (about 12,000) so one can avoid some and commune with others. In Guanajuato, that luxury is not yet open to the Gringo.
  • Learning Spanish Part One: The Problems And Solutions - It is not an exaggeration to declare that the United States of America could be the only country in the world where one can graduate from high school and even college without taking one course of foreign language study. Of those few schools which still require their students to take a foreign language to graduate, the one or two years of foreign language study is woefully inadequate for developing a high degree of spoken fluency.
  • Living In Mexico: Confessions Of An Insane Gringo - Let me first say that whether or not I am actually insane could be debated. However, my personal pendulum tends to swing toward the yes column. So, there you go, my first confession. The second confession is that I totally get that more than a little umbrage has been garnered as the result of my insane rant about Gringolandia and her citizens, The Gringolandians. Ok, I get why these communities end up coming into existence. It's easier for people to have a refined and well-developed gringo infrastructure. It is easier living in an enclave where you don't have to learn the language so you could live with the locals. It is as the Blogger says, "The overwhelming majority of Gringos who live in Mexico have moved directly onto a movie set...But, this is okay.
  • Seattle Mariners Baseball Tickets Available - Based in Seattle, Washington, United States - the Mariners are a professional baseball team established in 1977. From inception till June 1999, the team's home park was the Kingdome.
  • Learning Spanish Has Never Been Easier - Mnemonic memory training is a memory system that allows you to store information in and recall it from your long-term memory, and, in the case of learning a new language, your speech center. Mnemonics gives you a way to organize information, store it, and recall it.

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