Teaching

Here's a mishmash of thoughts on teaching the young ones at the school, now that I've been there for two weeks.  They've finally hired someone who will be there full time through June, so I'll get my days exploring Madrid back after Monday.  It'll be nice, but I'm really glad I had the chance to see what it was like working in the schools.  A perfect little interlude.  A couple kids even drew me pictures!  Anyway:

It`s really interesting to see the different methods of learning and teaching that take place here at school.  For example, the kids only learn block capitals for writing until second year (when they`re about seven) which is when they learn cursive.  And they aren`t supposed to have to do any writing in English until that second year, so all of it has to be oral learning or matching worksheets, but nothing that requires writing down the words.  Apparently this can get pretty difficult after a while, because you`re pretty limited with the types of games you can play with them.  And for the really young ones, the three year olds, English is not really recognizable at all.  I`ve read a couple of books with big pictures to them, pointing out animals and colors and other things, but I´m not sure how much of it actually sinks in.  I think the main point is for the kids to become accustomed to hearing it, and understanding comes later down the line.  I have been singing a lot of songs in English with some of the younger kids too, such as the Itsy Bitsy Spider (one of the teachers thought Itsy Bitsy was the name of the spider), and I`m kind of thinking maybe a few years down the road, a couple of these kids might have an epiphany about some of the words in the song once they get to a level where they understand what they mean.  I know that I remember my favorite Spanish word to use, quizas (which means perhaps or maybe) because it was in a song.  About cows or something.

The great thing about working with younger kids is that they really gravitate toward you even when they can´t understand a word that comes out of your mouth.  I get swarmed with hugs in the hallways now that I`ve been in classes with everyone for a few weeks and they all know who I am.  I was a little surprised that even the boys wanted to come and hug me and hold my hand, and I even had one creep into my lap during a story.  It`s a lot more acceptable for boys to show emotions here, and I think it`s great.

I think the main teachers really like me to, because it gives some of them who have a little English but not much the chance to practice speaking with me in a way that I think they`re shy to do with the other English teachers who do speak Spanish pretty well.  Being able to speak English is getting to be a necessity for teachers these days - one teacher had a pretty sad last day yesterday.  She`s an amazing teacher and has been working as a substitute in this class for four years and the kids really love her (they spray painted as much on the cement in front of the school) but they`re not renewing her contract because she doesn`t speak any English.  And apparently this isn`t the first teacher this has happened to in this district.  Spain feels like it`s pretty behind the rest of Europe in English speaking because under Franco, the country was very closed off and self-sufficient, and to some extent they are, but that`s nothing compared to how little most people in the US know of other languages, I feel.  But, being that English seems to be kind of the unofficial universal language, we can get by a lot easier.

Some of my class specific experiences:

On Monday afternoons in the three year old classes, parents come and the kids divide up into various groups to do activities.  A lot of them are more typical, like making something with clay or doing acting, but they also had cooking, where the kids made sugar cookies with cookie cutters one week and little shish kabobs and tea sandwiches another, and domestic tasks, which I think is my favorite to watch.  It`s pretty much exactly what it sounds like - they teach the kids how to wash their cups, how to tie their shoes, how to make a bed, how to hang up and fold laundry.  In the US, these are probably things parents usually teach their kids, but I thought it was great that everyone was being taught in class, because again, there was little distinction between the boys and girls, and no distinction about tasks that are only supposed to be for girls or anything like that.  I liked the lack of assumption.

A lot of the time, especially with the infant classes, I tend to come during their play time, when they basically tear apart the room and empty boxes of toys everywhere.  Playtime is pretty crazy and often doesn`t have much supervision, so kids grab things and learn to work out a lot of problems on their own.  They still go running to teacher if there`s a constant problem, like if one student keeps hitting them and won`t leave them alone, but I feel like they tend to figure things out like sharing and dealing with it if they get hit by a toy on their own.  I´m not sure if this is improved, because the kids do like to grab things from one another, but the problem solving, playing with another toy if one gets taken, may be a part of the more relaxed cultural lifestyle.

I had an awesome class with the seven year olds the other day.  In the first week, the teachers weren´t really counting on my presence, so they would do their typical lessons and I would just walk around and talk to the kids in English.  But I´m being incorporated a little more into the classes now, and we did a lesson on the human skeleton.  The teacher would talk for a bit in Spanish, and I would recap the same thing in English.  We talked about the biggest and smallest bones in the human body, as well as the skull, the spine, and others.  We also talked about why bones are important and what keeps them strong.  The kids were really engaged with the English as well as the Spanish, which was great.

On Thursday and Friday afternoons, the classes that I'm in typically have art, so I usually walk around and talk with them, asking them what their name is in English and how old they are, what their favorite color is, if they have any brothers or sisters, etc to get them talking and listening in English.

There was one girl who told me she had a sister and I kept asking her if her sister was older or younger than her, but she would only shake her head and look at me instead of answering.  I thought she just didn`t understand the question in English, but then I figured out that she was a twin and they were the same age.  Doh.