On speaking Spanish and eating pastries

Every language teacher tries to come up with creative, authentic and fun ways to get their students speaking in the target language. After all, communication, not conjugating verbs in the past perfect tense of the subjunctive mood, is the point of learning a foreign language.

So where is it that you usually find the intrepid foreign travelers trying to hone their language skills? They are meeting in the coffee houses and pastry shops of the world, hunched over a thick, black mug of java and a croissant , rubbing elbows with the locals and parsing utterances that may or may not resemble speech.

The upper-school Spanish speakers at the Mountain School have taken this idea to Cindy Bread in the form of talleres de conversación, conversation workshops. There is only one rule at these gatherings: no English. The incentive of a home-made baked good in the middle of a school day makes adherence to this rule successful. Kids often call each other out, in Spanish mind you, if they hear someone breaking the rule.

What do we talk about? The possibilities are numerous: pick a topic from a hat on which to speak, student presentations , improvisation scenarios, chat about weekends past, present and future, friends and families, plan an upcoming experiential trip. Students get a little taste of what it is like to try to figure out how to say what they want really want to communicate but might not have the language skills to do so. A little bit of immersion right here in Telluride, Colorado.

Telluride knows how to party

Telluride has over 30 parties and festival throughout the course of the year. They even have the Annual No Festival festival mid-July each year. Only t-shirts are sold, no events. Halloween is no exception to the must-party atmosphere. Everyone gets into it.

When I taught at Conval High in NH, about 20-30% of the faculty and students pulled it out on Halloween. Many thought it uncool to dress up and celebrate. Different states, different mentalities. Maybe it is the vestiges of the puritanical, have-no-fun history of New England. Colorado does not have that problem. Just living here is a reason to celebrate. Halloween is no exception. At the Mountain School we had a 99% dress-up rate. You just do it and enjoy the silliness of it all.

Then we left for the second half of the day to participate in the all-town Halloween Parade. Everyone comes out for it and it is usually snowing. This year the weather cooperated and it warmed up slightly by the time we were all outside.

The somewhat famous annual KOTO (local and only radio station) holds its annual Halloween Bash at the Sheridon Opera House. This year they celebrated their 33rd party. It has been voted the best party in Colorado by many a magazine. And I did not go. Owen would have severely disapproved of me foisting him off on a baby sitter on Halloween. Instead we trick or treated.

and then went to the Rock-n-Roll Academy Party at the Elks Lodge, a kid-oriented affair. A bunch of my students' bands were playing and we had a lot of fun. No alcohol, just bad coffee and plenty of sugary treats.

Walking through town on our way back home from the party we came across a few of Owen's friends playing outside a restaurant. I went in to say hello while Owen played and the parents practically dragged me into a seat at their table. It was immediately obvious that they HAD been to the KOTO party. Hey, free food. Who was I to argue? We closed the place down. We were the only ones there. Everyone else in town without kids was at the opera
house.