Time flies when you're teaching English! I've now completed my 5th week in Spain; 3 and a half of them working at Rosa Luxemburgo. Time is sure passing by quickly. We are already preparing for Halloween and the arrival of staff from out Twin School, Redlands Primary, in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England. Because of the visit by the Twin School staff we are downplaying Halloween and planning big stuff for Guy Fawkes Day, which is in the first week of November, possibly the 7th. The really super short version of Guy Fawkes day that I was told is he planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the 1600's and was caught and burned at the stake. Now towns and villages all over Britain re-enact the burning at the stake with an effigy which the community creates. This coincides well with the fact that November is fire safety month.
For Halloween, the older kids are going to participate in a pumpkin carving contest and we will award prizes for the best ones. Other than that, the celebration of Halloween is really up to the teachers. I know in Elena's class we are going to do some worksheets and activities that help them with grammar but use Halloween words and themes. Since we are working on feelings I looked around for coloring sheets and found one that has a ridiculous looking monster on it and a caption that says "The monster is mad," I don't know if that is mad like angry or mad like the British word for crazy, maybe both? We talked about making a potion in class so they could work on order words such as first, next, after, last. We threw around things we could use, like ketchup for blood and beans with eyes drawn on them. Then Elena said something about spider legs, but she didn't know what to use. I immediately thought of these little tiny soup noodles that are about an inch long and much skinnier than spaghetti. I told her we could use the noodles and she just gave me a blank stare. I tried to explain soup noodles, I even drew them on the board. She told me in Spanish they call them fideos and asked what the word do we use. So, I think I taught Elena "noodles" along with giving a suggestion for spider legs.
Speaking of Elena... I should share with you the funniest sentence I've heard yet, and it came from her. On Wednesday there was a girl bawling in class because her pencil and eraser were taken away. She was playing with them while I was reading them a book about day and night, and Elena had enough. After 15 or 20 minutes of crying Elena suggested that the girl go splash some water on her face and calm down. When she left the room the other kids asked where she was going and why she was crying. Elena told them that she was "going to wash her face in the toilet." I should point out that Elena didn't misspeak, rather the kids are taught British English, which calls the restroom "the toilet." To me "she is going to wash her face in the toilet" just sounds wrong; and when the kids ask me if they can go to the toilet it sounds vulgar, I don't need to know their exact destination. We've been encouraged not to correct the children when there are differences between the English they have been taught and the English we know, but I think if these kids went to The States and asked for the toilet they would get strange looks. They also call erasers "rubbers" which makes the adolescent boy in me giggle every time.
On a completely unrelated note, I received a wonderful complement on my Spanish skills yesterday. While I was in Eduardo's room working on a poster for the Redlands teachers Ines, the new 4th grade teacher came in just to say hi. She came in a few weeks into the school year because the regular 4th grade teacher took a leave of absence after her son was hit by a car and fell into a coma, he is doing much better but not out of the woods yet. Since Ines teaches the kids in Spanish I have no contact with her outside of the break times. We chatted for a little, I asked how her classes were getting along and she explained that it is much better now that she has been here a few weeks and knows the kids, a point that I totally agreed with. At the end of our conversation she asked how long I had been in Spain, and I told her about a month, she said that my Spanish was very good. I should point out that she is the one who teaches the kids Spanish grammar, so she is well qualified to make this assessment!
I also had the chance to walk home with the portero of our building. A portero is kind of like a doorman, but better. He is in charge of building upkeep, trash, mail deliveries and just being a generally friendly face in the vestibule. On my way home from school yesterday I saw him get on the same metro car as me, though he was talking with some people. When the other people got off one stop before ours he looked over with much surprise and asked if I lived in the building, I said yes. Then he told me about his metro friends, the people he sees each time he rides because he rides at the same time everyday. We chatted about what I was doing and about the weekend. He gave me a restaurant recommendation for our neighborhood. Yet another opportunity to practice Spanish.
All in all things are going well. I like my school, I have a few leads on private lessons and I'm getting the hang of speaking Spanish with native speakers. What else could I ask for?
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Double Post Day!
I didn't want to post these pictures with my story, as the two are really unrelated. I took a couple of snapshots along my route to school.The first is of Calle de Goya, heading towards the center of town. I leave my apartment a few minutes before 8am. It is still dark outside when I leave.
The next photo is of a metro train heading in the opposite direction. I couldn't stand on the platform long enough to take one of my train, but in this one you get to see the giant screen where Canal Metro is projected. Many metro stops have screens or TVs that play news of varying importance throughout the day. I take the metro from Goya to Moncloa, then a bus from Moncloa to school. In the mornings I am usually seconds away from missing the bus, so I clearly didn't have time to photograph it!
Next is a picture of the green academic fortress, Rosa Luxemburgo. I couldn't get a good shot of it, so most of what you see is the giant fence that surrounds the school. Behind the fence are four buildings. One for Infants, the next for 1st & 2nd grades, after that is my building which houses the 3rd & 4th grades, the cafeteria and the directors office. Last is the new building with the gym, the new computer lab and the 5th & 6th grades.
Here, I have a photo of my Coca Cola Light and some Patatas Bravas. Across the street from school is a small shopping center that includes two cafes. Ana Eimear and I usually walk around this area during the first hour of our lunch break, when the teachers have a meeting and we have free time. Today we stopped for a beverage and it came with potatoes.
On the way home I took a couple shots of Moncloa. The Moncloa area has many Franco-esque buildings, such as the Air Force building. I also took a photo of the metro entrance so you can see what the signs look like. It also includes that giant arch in the background, which to be perfectly honest, I don't know what it is...
Even a Police Officer Can't Keep These Kids In Line!
Bet that title got your attention! It is true. Today, the 3rd grade had a visit from a very friendly police officer, MariLuz. She and the kids talked about traffic signs and safety in the streets. That is once, the kids were quiet. MariLuz worked with them from 10 until 11 this morning. The kids were busy working in their English workbooks when she came in. As per usual it took forever for them to put away the books, especially since many of them had finished the activity and wanted me or Elena to correct it.
Each week Elena assigns two helpers. These kids to a lot of work! They put up the date and the lunch menu every morning, and they are in charge of passing out and collecting materials. When MariLuz entered, the helpers had to collect the workbooks, then pass out scissors and glue. The passing out of scissors and glue was basically chaos. The kids were supposed to have labeled their scissors and put them in a box for the class. When Guillermo began to pass out the scissors it soon became obvious how few of them were actually labeled. Kids were swarming him grabbing for scissors. Finally Elena got fed up with the chaos and told him just to give a pair to each kid, and that it didn't matter if they were that person's or not. Clearly, this would not go over well with the kids. Though they did sit back down, Guillermo spent 10 minutes criss-crossing the class to pass out the scissors "correctly".
Once they all had supplies, 15 minutes later, it was time to start cutting. These kids do not like to listen to instructions, not from us in English and not from the Police in Spanish. Before she could finish explaining that they were only supposed to cut out the "STOP" sign many kids were snipping away. She tried to talk about each sign as they cut it out, but that was clearly too slow for them. They wanted to destroy things!
I mostly watched this go down, as she was conducting the activity in Spanish and I am, under no circumstances, to speak to the kids in Spanish. I tried to help one boy, Victor, since he is usually lost in every activity we do, but when I started to re-explain in English he looked at me and said "I don't understand what you are saying..." and went back to cutting out the wrong things. When MariLuz turned her back to fill out their participation certificates, and Elena was correcting the workbooks I had to police the class. This included directing them back to their chairs, which apparently the forgot what "Sit down" means the second the teacher started speaking Spanish. It also meant that I got to hold on to a stuffed frog for the rest of the class period. One of the major trouble makers, Javi, tried to throw it to his friend Guillermo, but way over shot and it happened to land at my feet.
At the end of class one really bratty girl tried to rip it out of my hands and return it to Ruben, the owner. I'm starting to think that many of the kids try to pull fast-ones over on me because they think I don't understand Spanish. Oh, I understand, I'm just not allowed to speak it. So when you cop an attitude with me, but think that because it is in Spanish I'm just going to cave I get really annoyed. I also get annoyed when people talk down to me because I don't speak Spanish in front of the kids. At the end of the class, MariLuz was talking to Elena and she was asking about me/ why I wasn't participating. Elena explained that I am a language assistant, and as such only allowed to speak English with the kids. At this point MariLuz gave me a copy of the activity and slowly said something to me, I can't remember if it was "Buenas Dias" or what. But it was clearly slowed down. I know she was trying to be nice, but in doing so it came across as her thinking I'm not capable of speaking Spanish. I am perfectly capable, I'm just not allowed to!
After the adventures in traffic safety, I went to the break room for brunch. Just to remind you, everyday they give us a nice spread of coffee, tea, fruit, yogurt and random pastries. Today was Eduardo's birthday, this means that there was a giant spread of other things to complement the regular breakfast. I don't really know what I was eating, but it was pretty yummy. Ana, Eimear and I were sitting on one side of the table eating and chatting when Eduardo insisted on giving us wine. Yes, wine. Yes it was 11 am. It was delicious white wine, and I was happy to have a little drink after watching a police officer struggle to keep my kids in line! At the end of brunch there was still wine in the bottles, and Eduardo was not going to waste it. Eimear had been drinking red, and insisted that he couldn't put white in the same cup; while that was going on, Ana had stuffed her pastry wrapper into her plastic cup. Next thing I knew my cup was refilled. I told Eduardo I couldn't bring wine to Science class, he told me it was OK if I was late because I had to finish it. I can't imagine an American school that would allow such things, and this is why I love working in Spain.
I truly love working at my school. Everyday is different from the one before it. At times it can be awkward to be thrown into a tight-knit group of people who don't speak your native language, everyone does a great job of helping us feel welcome. I think they are such a close group because they are such nice people. Sure, there are times when it is overwhelming to sit in the break room and be engulfed in the cacophony of various Spanish conversations, but it is never impossible for us to participate. At times they want to help us practice Spanish, other times they want us to help them with English. There are a good number of people who don't speak any English, but last week we got into a debate about the collective abilities of Spaniards to learn languages, and even the monolingual people wanted to hear our opinions and stressed how important it was for them to be exposed to us speaking English.
Each week Elena assigns two helpers. These kids to a lot of work! They put up the date and the lunch menu every morning, and they are in charge of passing out and collecting materials. When MariLuz entered, the helpers had to collect the workbooks, then pass out scissors and glue. The passing out of scissors and glue was basically chaos. The kids were supposed to have labeled their scissors and put them in a box for the class. When Guillermo began to pass out the scissors it soon became obvious how few of them were actually labeled. Kids were swarming him grabbing for scissors. Finally Elena got fed up with the chaos and told him just to give a pair to each kid, and that it didn't matter if they were that person's or not. Clearly, this would not go over well with the kids. Though they did sit back down, Guillermo spent 10 minutes criss-crossing the class to pass out the scissors "correctly".
Once they all had supplies, 15 minutes later, it was time to start cutting. These kids do not like to listen to instructions, not from us in English and not from the Police in Spanish. Before she could finish explaining that they were only supposed to cut out the "STOP" sign many kids were snipping away. She tried to talk about each sign as they cut it out, but that was clearly too slow for them. They wanted to destroy things!
I mostly watched this go down, as she was conducting the activity in Spanish and I am, under no circumstances, to speak to the kids in Spanish. I tried to help one boy, Victor, since he is usually lost in every activity we do, but when I started to re-explain in English he looked at me and said "I don't understand what you are saying..." and went back to cutting out the wrong things. When MariLuz turned her back to fill out their participation certificates, and Elena was correcting the workbooks I had to police the class. This included directing them back to their chairs, which apparently the forgot what "Sit down" means the second the teacher started speaking Spanish. It also meant that I got to hold on to a stuffed frog for the rest of the class period. One of the major trouble makers, Javi, tried to throw it to his friend Guillermo, but way over shot and it happened to land at my feet.
At the end of class one really bratty girl tried to rip it out of my hands and return it to Ruben, the owner. I'm starting to think that many of the kids try to pull fast-ones over on me because they think I don't understand Spanish. Oh, I understand, I'm just not allowed to speak it. So when you cop an attitude with me, but think that because it is in Spanish I'm just going to cave I get really annoyed. I also get annoyed when people talk down to me because I don't speak Spanish in front of the kids. At the end of the class, MariLuz was talking to Elena and she was asking about me/ why I wasn't participating. Elena explained that I am a language assistant, and as such only allowed to speak English with the kids. At this point MariLuz gave me a copy of the activity and slowly said something to me, I can't remember if it was "Buenas Dias" or what. But it was clearly slowed down. I know she was trying to be nice, but in doing so it came across as her thinking I'm not capable of speaking Spanish. I am perfectly capable, I'm just not allowed to!
After the adventures in traffic safety, I went to the break room for brunch. Just to remind you, everyday they give us a nice spread of coffee, tea, fruit, yogurt and random pastries. Today was Eduardo's birthday, this means that there was a giant spread of other things to complement the regular breakfast. I don't really know what I was eating, but it was pretty yummy. Ana, Eimear and I were sitting on one side of the table eating and chatting when Eduardo insisted on giving us wine. Yes, wine. Yes it was 11 am. It was delicious white wine, and I was happy to have a little drink after watching a police officer struggle to keep my kids in line! At the end of brunch there was still wine in the bottles, and Eduardo was not going to waste it. Eimear had been drinking red, and insisted that he couldn't put white in the same cup; while that was going on, Ana had stuffed her pastry wrapper into her plastic cup. Next thing I knew my cup was refilled. I told Eduardo I couldn't bring wine to Science class, he told me it was OK if I was late because I had to finish it. I can't imagine an American school that would allow such things, and this is why I love working in Spain.
I truly love working at my school. Everyday is different from the one before it. At times it can be awkward to be thrown into a tight-knit group of people who don't speak your native language, everyone does a great job of helping us feel welcome. I think they are such a close group because they are such nice people. Sure, there are times when it is overwhelming to sit in the break room and be engulfed in the cacophony of various Spanish conversations, but it is never impossible for us to participate. At times they want to help us practice Spanish, other times they want us to help them with English. There are a good number of people who don't speak any English, but last week we got into a debate about the collective abilities of Spaniards to learn languages, and even the monolingual people wanted to hear our opinions and stressed how important it was for them to be exposed to us speaking English.
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