Blog 2: First teaching experience in Spanish speaking school 5/21/13

Today we went to our first Spanish speaking school, Calle Viquez Primary, to teach fourth graders the parts of the body in English.  The school was located in an impoverished, rural area and there were many things that surprised me when I stepped inside the school. I expected the rooms to be small, but I did not expect the room to be separated into two rooms by a curtain. There was also no connection between the ceiling and the walls, which meant the classroom gets extremely hot during the afternoons.

Another thing that surprised me was the the students knew English way better than I thought they would. The student I was working with answered all my questions I had for him except he did not understand when I asked him what his favorite animal was. He kept saying he didn't understand. At that time the teacher came over and told me to keep asking what his favorite animal was and he still did not understand. After a couple more tries his teacher finally asked him in English what favorite animal was and he quickly answered with, "dog". That surprised me because he did not understand the question when I asked him, but he understood it when his teacher asked him. This showed me as a future teacher that sometimes students won't understand I teach the first time so I need to find a way for them to understand that works for them. In this situation my voice and the way I speak English did not work for that student, but the way his teacher spoke English and asked the question did. 

The next thing that surprised me was that when we were leaving I saw younger students brushing their teeth outside in large sinks. I was later told that these students are in and out of houses, been through different types of abuses, and even came from coffee fields in Nicaragua, which means they needed to be taught good hygiene.  This is something that as a future teacher I may or may not have to teach my students depending on the area in which I teach so I need to prepared to incorporate that into my teaching content.

The last thing that surprised me was that the students were very well behaved and the teacher never had to correct student behavior or raise her voice. I wish I would have had the opportunity to ask or see how she created such great classroom management, but there just wasn’t enough time.