Trying to Think Outside the Box but Teach Within It

Here is a photo of me with my cooperating teacher, Miss Monica.  We are decked out in red and pink for Valentine's Day. Note the palm trees surrounding Varmond School.  I looooove them.

On Friday, we had a Kermesse at school for Valentine's Day.  Each grade had 1.5 hours free to go to the party. They could play games, purchase food and V-day gifts, and attend the Disco (the name for dance places here).  This was very exciting for the students.  Above I've included a video of the students dancing to give you an idea of what it was like.  I think this song is popular here, since it was also at my host mom's uncle's b-day party.  I think it's funny, because it reminds me of the country songs that we dance to in the U.S., and everyone here seems to know how to dance to it and enjoy the song!

This week in school, I taught how to make pop up (3-dimensional) heart cards in Composition, so my students could make them for their V-day card exchange.  Each student received a name of a classmate and had to make a card for them.  Overall, the cards turned out very nicely, and many of the students enjoyed making the pop-ups.  I quickly learned the challenges of giving clear instructions to a group of 27-28 students at one time.  Since making the pop-ups was really challenging for some students, I made sure it wasn't a requirement for the assignment.  One thing I learned about the Composition curriculum is that there really isn't a clear assessment method set up.  The grading seems pretty subjective to me.  I plan to write a general rubric for comp. work so that I can be sure that I'm grading more fairly and designing assignments in which the students know exactly what my expectations are.

In math, I came up with a really brief kinesthetic activity that worked well.  For teaching multiplying decimals by multiples of 10, I had students stand and take steps to each side saying "multiply" and "divide" to help them remember which way to move the decimal point for each operation.  I liked that this was a quick, effective, and fun warm up.  Afterward, all of the students seemed to remember which way to move the decimal in the problems!  I think I need to include more activities like this that are brief, since this is about all we have time for normally.

I was able to talk about the challenges of the curriculum with my cooperating teacher, and we seem to be on the same page.  There's always so much content to cover, and almost none of it overlaps or is connected.  Each content area is pretty much a separate subject entirely, which makes for a curriculum with a lot of breadth and minimal depth of understanding.  We must cover 7 content areas during the week, and we only meet with each class for 1.3 to 2.5 hour each day depending on the day.  Also, because we are required to have the students fill out all the workbook pages, regardless of how valuable they will be for our students, there's only so many of our own ideas that we can include in the classroom.  It's frustrating to have to teach within this box all of the time.  My biggest challenge is to think outside of this structure a little.  I still need to work on being more creative with the workbook pages and the few additional activities that we can include.

One student made a really interesting observation, which spurred a lot of reflection for me.  He asked me how long I've been studying Spanish.  It's been about 8 years for me (a little less, since I didn't take Spanish every semester in college).  He then noted that they, in sixth grade, have been learning English for about the same length of time!  Honestly, they've spent much more time than me in English classes in this bilingual school setting.  Here I am in this Spanish speaking country, able to use my Spanish to communicate with my host family, colleagues, and others around the city.  I still struggle with the language barrier here and sometimes need people to talk a tad slower, but overall I can function living here.  When my students try to talk to me in English or ask me question, it's usually a big chore for them.  I can tell that they are still translating one word at a time many times and often searching for words they don't remember or know.  In their writing, their grammar often reflects Spanish grammar patterns more than English ones.  This tells me that they're still not able to think in English in the way that I can think in Spanish.  I find this really problematic, because they've certainly had more time devoted to their foreign language than I have to mine.  I think this problem is partly rooted in the fact that the curriculum does not include many opportunities for talking in English, which I believe is an integral part of language acquisition!  One of my major goals now is to restructure the way in which I utilize the curriculum books so that the students are talking in English much, much more.  I want them to gain a level of comfort and confidence speaking English.

All right, well I best be going.  Frida, my host sister's 4 year old daughter who is visiting today with her family, has been begging me to play a game with her!  The game is called "el lince," and I've never seen it before or heard of it.  I hope I can learn how to play!

This weekend, I hope to check out some of the museums here.  I live in the historical center of the city within walking distance (of 20 or 30 min. max?) of all the major historical buildings and museums.  Cool, huh?  I also home to rest my voice a bit and recuperate more.  My cold is muuuch better, but I still have a bit of a sore throat.

I will leave you with this Spanish Joke I learned this week:

--"¿Quál es el pollo que te quiere más?"  ("Which is the chicken that you want most?")

--"¡'Po yo!  (Which is an abbreviation for "Pues yo" which means "Well me!")

--Jajajaja (this is how you write "Hahaha" in Spanish.)