I grew up speaking English with my family. When I was in the seventh grade, I chose to study Spanish as my foreign language
requirement for graduation. During my senior year at Ward Melville High School, I decided that I wanted to
pursue a career in teaching Spanish. After
graduating from high school, I went to SUNY Cortland and
majored in Adolescent Education in Spanish. While in my junior year there, I decided to study abroad in Salamanca, Spain. While I was studying Spanish there, I lived with a family. I had my own room in their apartment, where I slept and would eat three meals a day with Beni, my host mother and José, my host father. One morning, I woke up late for class. I got dressed quickly, grabbed my bag and headed out the door. As I was hurrying down the street, I dropped my notebook. Some very nice strangers helped me
gather my papers. After saying thank you, I began walking quickly in what I thought was the direction of school. After a couple of
blocks, I realized I was heading in the wrong direction and that I was going to arrive even later to class. When I finally reached my school, I ran up the stairs and arrived at my classroom. As I was rushing up the stairs, I was rehearsing what I was going to say to apologize to my professor. I knew I wanted to say I was sorry and that I was embarrassed for being late. As I sprung open the door, I announced "Lo siento, estoy embarasada." What I had intended to say was that I was sorry and embarrassed for being late. I received a very strange grin from my teacher and a few weird looks form my classmates. As I found a seat, another American student leaned over to me and said "Doesn't embarasada mean pregnant?" Instead of saying I was embarrassed, I announced to the whole class that I was pregnant. Now, I was really embarrassed! This is an example of a false cognate. A false cognate is a word in one language that looks or sounds like a word in another language and has a DIFFERENT meaning. Cognates are words that sound or look alike and have the SAME meaning.
Vocabulary:
1)
requirement: something that you have to do
2)
pursue: choosing to do or follow something
3)
graduating: completing high school
4)
majored: what you choose to study in college
5)
gather: to bring to together, collect
6)
blocks: parts of streets, from one corner to another
Cloze Activity: Fill in the following blanks with one of the above vocabulary words.
1) The school is four ___________ away from my house.
2) You must complete the foreign language _____________ in order to graduate.
3) Please ___________ your belongings and meet me in the office.
4) After _____________ from high school, the students will continue to college.
5) While in the college, the teacher ____________ in education.
6) The student wants to ____________ a career in politics.
Grammar Point- The Present Progressive:
The present progressive is a way to express something that is occurring in the moment, or happening right now. To form verbs in the present progressive, you must add -ing to the end of the word. For example, the verb graduating is the verb graduate plus the ending -ing.
Grammar Exercise:
Write the following verbs in the present progressive:
1) Follow _________________
2) Study __________________
3) Learn __________________
4) Reach __________________
5) Speak __________________
