I got to school a little early this morning, these are the thoughts that I jotted down on the iPod.
Language learning: Useful Phrases vs Straight Grammar
There are obvious pluses to learning useful phrases in a foreign language. In fact, it's completely necessary. You can't just jump into another culture and not learn how to say "Excuse me" and "where's the bathroom?"
So my question is this: where's the line to tell when it's time to tell the learner that "¿Cómo estás?" is the 2nd person singular familiar conjugation of the verb "to be" in present tense? Put it all together and it literally means, "How are you?"
I mean it's kinda cool to figure out that kind of stuff on your own. For example, I thought the other day about "Au revoir" in French. "Voir" means "to see" so "revoir," "to see again." It's fun to make those discoveries on one's own, but perhaps I should've learned that earlier.
As usual, I'm just realizing that balance is the answer, and I just haven't found it yet. As I think about language teaching/learning, this kind of stuff mulls around in my brain.
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