Spanish & Cooking Class at CPI Monteverde

        I think I made good progress in learning Spanish due to my caring instructors at CPI, Monteverde. Lisa and I took two weeks of intensive four hour sessions. The first two days were overwhelming for me due to Spanish vocabulary and verbs overload. The instructor was young, cheerful and pushed me hard. She refused to communicate with me in English. The next week, I was placed with a different instructor. This lady was a master teacher. She was caring, patient, intuitive and changed activities every 30 minutes. She even played games like Jenga to teach me verbs. We also used the Promethean board to learn animal vocabulary. On the last two days, she focused mainly on helping me with vocabulary that would be beneficial in communicating with Spanish speaking parents. I had the best language learning experience at this school. The location of the school in the mountains, the mild weather and the beautiful gardens made it an aesthetic experience.

          On Wednesday after Spanish class, Lisa and I signed up for a Costa Rican Cooking Class at CPI. It was a great learning experience with Beatrice. She had cutting boards and tasks assigned for all 12 of us. I started out with chopping cilantro. Next, I used my hands to pat corn tortillas on a sheet of plastic. Then, I cooked the tortillas on both sides on a pan using a flat spatula on medium high heat. The students made: salad, rice with vegetables and chicken, frijoles and tortillas. We had fun working together and it was a great hands on learning experience. The food was delicious because the vegetables were so fresh! This cooking class has inspired me to try some cooking activity with my Spanish speaking students in the future. We both enjoyed being students for two weeks immensely.