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In order to be a volunteer tutor for refugees and immigrants learning English, I had to do some minimal training (I'm not teaching; I'm only supplemental help), and part of that involved watching some videos on language acquisition. The video below on world languages was something extra you could watch. I knew most of the stuff in it already, but I liked the presentation, the varying examples used, and the inclusion of information about signing languages. Take a look if you feel like it--it's 11 minutes.
My tutee is from El Salvador, is trans, and a real delight. We bonded instantly over both learning Portuguese--she sent me a link to a free online site for learning it, and I laughed, because the site is--of course!--for Spanish speakers learning Portuguese. Well so that will be a fun challenge, if I do it. I told her about seeing a bald eagle the other day and asked if El Salvador had a national bird, and she told me yes, the torogoz, and WOW. That is one beautiful bird. In looking around for more information, I stumbled upon this wonderful site called "Your Story Our Story," which describes itself as "a national project [that] explores American immigration and migration through crowd-sourced stories of everyday objects." It invites you to add your own. I came across it because a high school student in Annapolis had written about el torogoz:
Photo of a torogoz by Flickr user Erik Rivas--click through to get to his page
**A guanaco is an animal like a llama, and/but Salvadoreans refer to themselves as guanacos. I went on a google search to find out why/how/when, and it seems like it was originally a derisive thing, and not limited to Salvadoreans at all, but gradually became something they adopted with pride. (A los salvadoreños nos dicen guanacos ... ¿por qué?) It made me think of The Emperor's New Groove
My tutee is from El Salvador, is trans, and a real delight. We bonded instantly over both learning Portuguese--she sent me a link to a free online site for learning it, and I laughed, because the site is--of course!--for Spanish speakers learning Portuguese. Well so that will be a fun challenge, if I do it. I told her about seeing a bald eagle the other day and asked if El Salvador had a national bird, and she told me yes, the torogoz, and WOW. That is one beautiful bird. In looking around for more information, I stumbled upon this wonderful site called "Your Story Our Story," which describes itself as "a national project [that] explores American immigration and migration through crowd-sourced stories of everyday objects." It invites you to add your own. I came across it because a high school student in Annapolis had written about el torogoz:
El torogoz is a small bird that has many colors, blue, green, red and black and is from El Salvador. The torogoz is the national bird of El Salvador. All Salvadorian people know the bird and we have respect for the torogoz. Also we feel proud of our bird. The object is important for our people because we identify with the torogoz. That way we feel part of Salvadorian culture ... This represents me because I feel "guanaco** de corazon." It means I am Salvadorian deep in my heart.
**A guanaco is an animal like a llama, and/but Salvadoreans refer to themselves as guanacos. I went on a google search to find out why/how/when, and it seems like it was originally a derisive thing, and not limited to Salvadoreans at all, but gradually became something they adopted with pride. (A los salvadoreños nos dicen guanacos ... ¿por qué?) It made me think of The Emperor's New Groove
