Monday! First day of work in my language assistant program. Today I went to both schools that I will be working at and introduced myself to the teachers and children. With the help of one English speaking T.A, Ana, we went from class to class where she introduced me and I fielded some questions from the students. We started with the youngest classes, 3rd graders, and went all the way up to the 6th graders. The most common questions were in reference to my favorite color or sport or food. Most of the kids were pretty shy but I attribute that to any time a large unfamiliar black guy shows up at this school in Malgrat. The kids are very funny and I'm sure they will come out of their shell soon enough, they better because I'll be teaching them.
The school system here is interesting because the students start at 9AM and go until 1PM then they go home and come back from 3PM to 5PM. To me this is very interesting because it's not at all like home and the teachers have to be mindful of a gap in the middle of the day. Plus school doesn't end until 5PM!! Can you imagine being in a 3rd grade class until 5 at night? Then again dinner isn't usually until 9 or 10 at night so it's not so bad.
After leaving the primary school I walked over to the secondary school where the kids range from 12-18. I didn't enter the classrooms there to avoid the commotion that the older kids are bound to make when I do. I met with several of the teachers and had lunch with them as well. As we ate lunch there were two old nuns that used to work in the school and when they heard me speak Spanish they were quite surprised. I told them that my goal was to get a lot better at Spanish and the immediately said that I could practice with them. It was more of a command than a nice gesture but I'll take it. I'm not gonna mess with a nun plus I get more practice. Win win.
I left the school after lunch and grabbed tea with two of the teachers that are my guides. Both speak english and collaborate with me on the gameplan for teaching english.
For those that don't know what exactly I'm doing over here I can explain. I admit I was a bit confused myself early on. Basically I am an assistant to the English language development program. I help a few teachers each day for about an hour as I rotate between the classrooms and grade levels. I'm responsible for making a few lesson plans and helping them find the best way to teach English. It's difficult because the students have no one to practice their speech with so me being here is a type of trial run the will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of assistants like myself.
Oh well I'm excited to actually start teaching tomorrow but not going to bed until after I watch the Breaking Bad finale. It's Heisenberg time. Till the next time.
That language barrier is coming down! (Hopefully)
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