Schooling vs. just knowing

In the English class for kids where I am volunteering, I had a small realization about how hard it must be to learn English. The kids know hardly any words or grammar and the teacher is a young man who can speak some English but is not really a teacher. He thought today to teach them some simple pronouns along with the simple form of “to be.” He went through the conjugation and wrote it on the board with the kids repeating after him by rote. Looking at the board, I could see virtually no pattern and no sign of the infinitive “to be.” Spanish has umpteen verb endings and tenses, but at least I can see patterns and roots, even though I have trouble remembering them.

I said something about this to the teacher and he asked if hadn’t noticed this before. I said not so much, that I had just grown up with the language and could hear the differences. He smiled and said it was the same for him and these kids in learning Spanish – they aren’t consciously deciding on rules and usages, they can just hear the differences and know the words.

So here I am going to school, trying to learn words and rules and all that, and having conversations where I struggle to hear and understand what is being said to me while I try to say something meaningful and correct and having the hardest time. I know things and then forget them (which I blame on my age – I forget stuff in English much more than I used to). But there is also something else I lack: the seemingly natural way of language acquisition which comes from growing in the culture, not from schooling.

My idea about getting a grip on Spanish is to move somewhere after this round of schooling where Spanish is the language. Don’t do more schooling, but do something everyday that causes me grow the brain matter that just “knows” the language. Maybe I’ll do better when I’m not trying, just letting it seep in somehow? Both, I suppose. Gotta grow some more neurons and synapses that know how to speak Spanish.