Buenas tardes

"Buenas tardes. Me llamo professora Evans."

So greeted us our Conversational Spanish instructor as the semester began for American River College. When Carolyn and I had pulled into the parking lot of the Ethan Way extension campus we weren't sure this class was going to carry as there were only three other cars in the lot. However, by the time class was to start 15 minutes later there were about 25 students ready and waiting. The Ethan Way extension campus appears to be primarily for computer training with most of the classrooms equipped with computers at each student desk. Ours is one of the exceptions. But in any case, the building is well cared for and the instructor's video projector is probably going to work better than a similar setup on the main campus might.

Professor Schroeder-Evans led a very energetic first class as she covered the ground rules, the grading schedule, her syllabus, and even the various styles of Spanish that exist and which ones she will teach. She intends the class to be close to immersion with less than 1% English spoken. She made the point in several ways that you don't have to understand 100% of what is said to get the gist of the content. Some of her classroom control "gimmicks" seem geared to a little younger crowd but if they work, who cares? For example, during classroom discussions, she hands out "fichas" or chips (really just poker chips) to those who participate. At the end of class you turn in your fichas and she records this in her roll as a way to track who is participating and how much. It has a small but significant effect on your grade.

The class will emphasize conversation and even on this first evening we were made to get out of our seats and wander around the classroom introducing ourselves to fellow classmates with the limited language that we picked up when Professor Evans opened the class with "Good afternoon. My name is Professor Evans."

Like our other evening class experiences, the student representation is older than the usual community college class. Everyone appears to be seriously interested in learning Spanish. This has every indication of being a good class experience.