Category: Free Inquiry

My inquiry journey of learning Spanish was really beneficial to my future teaching practice. I will be a French Immersion teacher, so learning the different ways that students learn a second language was really helpful. This experience was valuable as I got to learn through the lens of a student while also developing language teaching techniques as a teacher. Here is an overview of the content that I learned throughout my inquiry process along with my personal reflection:

As the video highlights, in my free inquiry journey I learned about,

• Masculine and feminine
• Duolingo
• The present tense
• Adjectives
• Spanish culture through food
• Food vocabulary
• Tips for learning a new language

Every week allowed me to further develop my language skills and future teaching skills. I am glad that I chose to focus on this topic for my inquiry as it really allowed me to learn about a variety of different language concepts. My big takeaway from this inquiry is the importance of enjoying what/how you are learning. This is important to understand as a future teacher as everyone learns differently. So, it is essential to incorporate different teaching strategies in the classroom to ensure that every type of learner is benefitting. This means that you can use books, movies, songs, conversations, direct or indirect instruction, independent exploration, etc. I think that it is important for language learners to have explored many different types of learning to ensure they are developing their written comprehension (reading), written expression (writing), oral comprehension (listening), and oral expression (speaking) skills.

I hope that with this inquiry, you also learned some beneficial suggestions on how to learn and teach a language. I will be utilizing the skills that I learned through this inquiry and implementing them in my classroom. In addition to this, I will ensure that my students have opportunities to explore their own free inquiry journey as it is such a valuable experience!

Thank-you for listening…

Kyra

To build off of learning the Spanish culture through food from last week, this week I wanted to focus on the Spanish vocabulary associated with food. I really enjoy Mexican food, so I find that it is time for me to learn the names for my favourite dishes and ingredients. This is important as you must know the proper terms for food if you travel to Spanish speaking countries.

To begin… food in Spanish is alimentos (plural masculine) or la comida (singular feminine). And the verb of “to eat” is comer. Some other important food terms to know are:

• breakfast = el desayuno (noun) or desayunar (verb)
• lunch = el almuerzo (noun) or almorzar (verb)
• dinner = la cena (noun) or cenar (verb)

This list displays some common Spanish food vocabulary

Now that we know some Spanish food vocabulary, how should you order food in a restaurant? Well, there are two verbs that you should use. They are poner (to put) and traer (to bring). These two verbs can be used interchangeably when ordering food (even though they have different English translations). A brief and clear definition of the difference between these verbs is,

“If you’re ordering real food or drinks, you can use both, poner or traer.
If you’re ordering other things that are far away from the waiter (the menu, the check, a fork, a slice of lemon), use traer”. (“How To Sound Natural When Ordering Food In Spanish”)

In addition to this, this website How to Sound Natural When Ordering Food in Spanish (deliberatespanish.com) provides helpful tips on speaking in Spanish when in a restaurant, grocery store, or talking about food.

Please watch this YouTube video of food vocabulary in Spanish. This video will allow you to read and hear the vocabulary, which is essential when learning another language. I really enjoy this video as it is separated into different sections (i.e.. breakfast food, breakfast drinks, lunch drinks, etc.)

Now, once you feel confident with your newly acquired food vocabulary in Spanish…try this online quiz Spanish Food Vocabulary Trivia Quiz! – ProProfs Quiz! This quiz will help you learn, review, and enhance your knowledge and vocabulary of food in Spanish as it contains words and pictures. I got 20/20! Woohoo

¡Adiós!

Kyra

This week, I wanted to immerse myself more into the Spanish culture. I find that food is an important part of every culture. There is so much history connected to food. So, I decided to use this week of my inquiry journey to learn about the most popular Spanish cuisine dishes.

I began this week by reading this website with recommendations of popular Spanish cuisine, 14 Spanish dishes you should try — from churros to jamon | CNN. I found this website to be really insightful as it provides a description of the dish and where to try it.

After reading this website, I decided to try to make churros. A churro is a Spanish desert that is popular for many occasions or as a breakfast item. I decided to make churros as a desert. Churros can be eaten with a sweet sauce (such as chocolate or dolce de leche) or simply with cinnamon sugar. This is the recipe that I followed to make churros, Churros (Homemade Recipe with Step by Step Photos) – Cooking Classy.

Please watch this video on how to make churros prior to trying the recipe.

Upon watching this video and reading about churros, I finally decided to try to make homemade churros. I did not make the churros in the traditional form of long sticks, but as squares. This allowed me to use less oil and cook them quickly. The video below is the final result of the churros…they were DELICIOUS! I will be making them again.

I find that learning about the Spanish culture through food to be enriching to my inquiry journey. An individual can not learn a language without learning about the culture, as the two go hand in hand. Food is only one component of the Spanish culture. Culture can also include music, films, festivals, destinations, traditions, and many other factors. The Spanish culture is unique and I hope to learn more about it on my inquiry process of learning the Spanish language.

Adiós,

Kyra

Last week my inquiry focus was on masculine and feminine words in Spanish. But, Spanish is much more complex than just that. With any language, it is important to know different verbs and how to properly conjugate them. Therefore, I will be learning the Spanish present tense (presente indicativo) with regular verbs

The three verb endings in Spanish are -ar, -er, and -ir. Any verb in Spanish that can be translated will have one of these endings. I used this helpful website to teach myself how to properly translate regular Spanish verbs The present simple tense | Learning Spanish Grammar | Collins Education (collinsdictionary.com).

Regular -ar verbs:

yo: o ; tú: as ; él/ella/ustede: a ; nosotros: amos ; ellos/ellas/ustedes: an

Examples:

• Yo hablo español (I speak Spanish)

• Ella baila todos los dias (She dances everyday)

Regular -er verbs:

yo: o ; tú: es ; él/ella/ustede: e ; nosotros: emos ; ellos/ellas/ustedes: en

Examples:

• Yo como pan (I eat bread)

• Ellos corren rápido (They run fast)

Regular -ir verbs:

yo: o ; tú: es ; él/ella/ustede: e ; nosotros: imos ; ellos/ellas/ustedes: en

Examples:

• Nosotros vivimos en victoria (We live in Victoria)

• Ella escribe los libros (She writes books)

This image below displays the regular -ar, -er, and -ir verb endings side by side. I find this image to be very helpful as it shows the trends between the different endings. They all follow a similar pattern, only the -a, -e, and -i are different.

Now that we know the regular verb endings in the present tense, what are the steps for how to conjugate a verb? The brief video provides clear steps on how to conjugate a verb. You begin with the regular verb, keep the root, remove the ending (-ar, -er, -ir), then add the conjugated ending.

Since we know understand how to translate verbs in the present tense, try a practice quiz! I find that practice quizzes are a valuable method of self assessment for checking my own understanding of a certain topic. Here is a good practice quiz that I completed Spanish Present Tense Forms Practice Quiz | SpanishDict.

This week really helped develop my inquiry process of learning Spanish. Verbs are the basis of any language. Once you deeply understand the present tense, you can begin learning more complex verb structures.

Adiós,

Kyra

Buenas tardes (good afternoon)

This week to progress my inquiry on learning Spanish, I completed a Duolingo lesson. This lesson focused on the Spanish words for man, woman, boy, and girl. The gender of these words (el, la, un, una) are the basis of the Spanish language. The majority of other words are either masculine or feminine. Once you understand this then you can progress into more complex words and sentence structures. This blog explains the importance of masculine and feminine in Spanish, Masculine and Feminine Spanish: 3 Details That Are Often Overlooked | FluentU Spanish.

Below is a video of a Spanish lesson on determining if a noun is masculine or feminine. I find this video to be very useful and very explanatory.

I find all the resources that I have listed above to be very beneficial to my inquiry learning process. From here, I feel confident in moving forward to basic verb structures, such as the present. It is important to have a deep understanding of the basics of a language before processing to more complex components. For me, I have found that the masculine and feminine nouns in the Spanish language to be very straightforward as this is my third language. I am bilingual in French and English, so I find Spanish to share similar aspects with French.

I hope to keep processing my learning of Spanish as it is such a beautiful language.

Hasta luego (see you later),

Kyra