Todo es Cheque Leque en Siguatepeque: Kids say the funniest things.

When you are learning a new language you will say ridiculous things. This is a fact. The combination of a desire to share my thoughts and a limited understanding of Spanish has caused me to say things to my coworkers that probably sound more like jibberish than English or Spanish. For example, last week I got off the bus in town so I could go to the grocery store. Another teacher was headed to the same place and politely asked me what I was doing and where my roommates were going. I meant to tell her that I needed some food so I was going shopping and my roommates were headed to our house. Just a basic, normal response to a basic normal question. I just don't know how she kept a straight face when I told her that my roommates were headed to her house.

Downtown Siguatepeque- This picture was taken during a festival for all the preschools and kindergartens in the city. My roommates Zoe and Amanda Bruin are in the middle of this pic. The guy with the wheelbarrel on the left was selling oranges with salt! Que rico(Delicious)!

It's probably a good thing that I make these mistakes because it helps me understand how easy it is to mix up simple words and when my students say things like "My name is bathroom," or respond with "fine thank you," when I ask them how old they are it's easy to laugh.

Dominique. The class clown of first grade and an air guitar enthusiast.

Our first graders know quite a bit a English vocabulary so we decided it's time to actually teach them to put these words together into sentences. For their first phrase we started with What is your name? They mastered that within a couple days so we added "How old are you?," and "May I go to the bathroom?" Then things started to get interesting. Class would be progressing normally, the kids would seem to be learning when suddenly, someone would inform us that they have (insert name) years or that their name was 6 years old. As we've continued to work on the phrases these incidents have decreased but sometimes, they still pop up.

The First Graders Introduce Themselves

Jonathan, First Grade(Primero)