I am now a little bit over a week into my class where I get to go into an elementary school called a “colegio” and teach the little kids, and it’s pretty awesome. I have six hours a week to do, and a Journal to write, and that’s the class. I go Monday, Tuesday, and Wed to the colegio which is not more than five minutes walk from my house, which is SO convenient and way easier than walking the 25 minutes to where classes are. I teach first and third grade, but all in English. I am still not quite sure what the philosophy is behind the way they teach English to their students, but apparently they only have one hour a week dedicated to English, which I am there for. However, some of the other subjects, for instance science, they have in both their Castillan Spanish and in English. Very interesting.
The first graders are pretty tough to work with. Happy go lucky and very funny, but also frustrating at the same time because they don't listen to ANYONE, and are always yelling out and getting up from their desk to do whatever it is five year olds do. The second graders are MUCH better, which is interesting since the age gap is not huge, but they are much better behaved and learn ten times better. The teachers have interactive DVDs that they play on the projector screens: they have songs in english to help remember things like animals and parts of the body. Just in the one hour that I teach them, they make noticeable progress, but forget it by the time I get back for the next English class. If I had an hour a day with the same class I know I could make their English tenfold better, and they would definitely make my Spanish better. Oh well.
First grade class!
The teachers, who teach them English, are not well spoken in English. It would have been the equivalent of me trying to teach a class in Spanish after finishing Spanish 2 or 3 in high school. I wouldn't be able to do it, and they have a tough time with it - part of the reason they have so much trouble with English is that, as I have noted, certain phonetic sounds in the English language do not exist in the Spanish language. Therefore, neither the teachers nor the students can say letter combinations like "th" (although it's very similar to the "s" sound they make here when the speak spanish) or anything with a hard "A", like my name...they call me "Jota". Overall it's a really great experience and I love the kids and the teachers I work with, invaluable to see into a elementary school in a foreign country for my future in education as well as my Spanish.
One of my favorite 2nd grade students, his name is escaping me right now
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