I was still a bit congested, especially in my ears, so I felt bad for any students who had questions on Wednesday. My word of the day was "¿como?" (What?) Wednesday was great, though. I love Wednesdays because I get to work with 8th grade A in the morning, and then kindergarteners in the afternoon. So, in the morning at the central park school building, I worked with the 8th graders to teach them rooms of the house and items in each room. For example, the living room has a sofa, chairs, and a table. The bedroom has a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. I would write each room and its items on the board, and say each word aloud. Students would repeat the words after me and take notes. Then, I wrote simple comprehension fill-in-the-blanks, such as "The toilet is in the ______________." and "The sofa is in the __________." After English class, the students went to the soccer field across the street from Casa Maya. There, they had P.E. class. P.E. classes here in El Salvador consist of jogging, maybe some other form of calisthenics, and playing soccer. I asked one of the students if they sometimes play other games or do other activities in P.E., and he said no, that they only play soccer. Fútbol, or soccer, is definitely the sport of the country. It's an activity that everyone knows and loves. It doesn't matter if kids are from middle-class or poor families: everyone knows soccer. I am definitely the odd one out for not knowing the game very well. I told one of the students, Melvin, that I'd love to learn soccer and he said he could try to teach me next time. I know only the most basic rules of the game: two teams, use your feet, kick the ball (dribble it) and then make goals by kicking it into the net opposite the field from where your team started playing. I have no idea what off-sides means or what constitutes penalties. I also lack the skill necessary to play the game. I believe one must kick with the inner side of the foot rather than the toe, but I'm not totally sure about that. Also, these kids have some crazy moves! They'll be running forward and then kick the ball behind them to pass it to a teammate, or they'll jump up and kick their feet almost straight upward to intercept the ball in mid-air. Many kids play without shoes, too, and I'm amazed at how tough their feet must be to run back and forth across a rocky, weedy field and kick a ball. While some of the kids play, others will sit on the sidelines with me and chat. Some students will chat with me in Spanish about where I'm from or to talk about music, and others will practice speaking English with me. On Wednesday, Manuel was curious to know what some of the songs he likes mean. I should mention that music in English is extremely popular here. Practically all the 7th-11th graders adore One Direction, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Skrillex, Katy Perry, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, etc. Meanwhile, many of the adults I've talked to love the same music I love, like the Rolling Stones, Nirvana, the Beatles, Kiss, Roxette, and other classic rock artists. Anyway, on Wednesday, Manuel asked me to listen to some songs that he was playing on his phone. The first song he had me listen to was "I'm a Boss-Ass Bitch" by Nicki Minaj. . . . Yeah, I think the expression on my face was enough to let him know that the lyrics were not appropriate conversational words in English. He then played some other songs for me. Most of the songs were rap, but there were a couple melodic songs about heartbreak and such. I didn't give him word-for-word translations, but I would tell him what the songs were basically about and if certain songs had bad words and whatnot.
In the kindergarten class that day, the kids learned three new verbs in Nahuat and in English. Teacher Jaqueline taped three pictures on the whiteboard: a person eating, a person sleeping, and a person watching TV. She wrote the Nahuat words for "eat," "sleep," and "watch" on the left, and I wrote the English words on the right. The children would hear and repeat the Nahuat words several times, and then the same for the English words. (pictures below).
I also helped teacher Jaqueline cut out foam circles and hot-glue little bears together for Mother's Day gifts, although Mother's Day isn't until May 10.
Thursday was pretty great, too. I got to work with 9th graders in the morning, and they were learning about how to give directions in English. They had packets with simple maps and questions about the maps. I drew pictures on the board to demonstrate the meanings of "Across from," "On," "On the corner of," and "Next to," and the students worked mostly on their own as I helped individuals with questions. Thursday was also a P.E. day, except I decided to participate today. I need to shed a few pounds, anyway. I think all the delicious, heavy food is catching up to me! P.E. is from 10-11 in the morning, so it's pretty hot by that point. I was wearing a nice shirt and a jean skirt, and I soaked my clothes with sweat. Next week I'll definitely remember to wear appropriate attire. It felt so good to exercise again that I didn't care too much about how much I was sweating. I was just glad that I had brought a frozen bottle of water and a bandana with me! I was able to sponge off with ice-cold water.
In the afternoon, the kindergarteners learned how to count to three in Nahuat and in English. Later, teacher Jaqueline told the students a story about two little mice, with the moral of the story being "stranger danger."
Today was a great day, although it was off to a rough start. Even though I slept for at least 8 hours last night, I still was dragging myself out of bed this morning. I even fell asleep on the toilet after I got up. I was finally waking up by the time I got to school, though, and I had a great time with the 11th grade students today. This morning's lesson was about how to use comparative adjectives, for example, how to say "I am taller than you are," or "My father is older than my mother," "You look happier than you did yesterday," and "San Salvador is more dangerous than Caluco city." Don Jesús and I read all of the initial adjectives aloud ("hot," "big," "fat," etc) and then explained the rule for each group of adjectives (If it ends with a vowel between two consonants, double the final consonant. If it ends with y, change the y to an i and add er. If it has three or more syllables, add "more" before the word.). Students then had to write at least 12 sentences using comparative adjectives. While the students were working, Don Jesús left the room (as he OFTEN DOES once the kids start working). When students finished writing, they would bring their notebooks to me to correct their work, and I noticed that half of the class was doing okay, but the other half of the class was not writing complete sentences. They would write something like "My father happier than." After I explained this at least three times, I decided I'd better address the issue head-on. I went up to the whiteboard and wrote "I am taller than my mother." Under this, I wrote the translation, "Yo soy más alta que mi mamá." In Spanish, I called the students' attention and explained that when we use comparative adjectives in English, we have to talk about at least two things, just like in Spanish. I explained that "que" means "than" and so it doesn't make sense to leave the sentence hanging (I demonstrated in Spanish how awkward it sounded). I asked if the students understood, and they said yes. After that, everyone brought me complete sentences with correctly-conjugated comparative adjectives. I was pretty proud that I was able to explain a concept in Spanish to help the students with their English. I was also proud of the students for quickly correcting their errors and catching on so quickly! I think that says a lot for using the native language to support second language learning. Don Jesús seems to think that I should only speak English to the students, even though I know they won't understand everything I say. Even though they know some English, my accent is SO different from the thick Spanish accented-English of Don Jesús. Even the teacher has a hard time understanding my English, though he says my "accent is beautiful." So I use Spanish to help explain concepts because I think that comprehension is more important than just having students parrot words or just copy writing things out of a book. I digress. After recess, Don Jesús came back and introduced the next activity, which was to read a paragraph about transportation and answer some questions about it. First, I read the paragraph aloud, then I read phrases and the students repeated me, and then the students read the paragraph to themselves. While the students were reading, I asked Don Jesús if I could try something different with the students to answer the questions. Even though Don Jesús is always saying that "English is communication" and "students must hear and speak to learn English," basically all the students do is read and write and not speak English at all. I asked if I could go over each question with the students and have them read the questions to me and we'd answer the questions orally as a whole class before they wrote down their answers. He said I could try it, but he wasn't sure it was a good idea. He said it might be too hard because the students are really only good at reading and writing. I said that I understood that, and that's why I wanted them to have more practice speaking in English. When most of the students said they'd finished reading the paragraph, I wrote the first question on the board, read it slowly out loud, and then asked the students to read it with me. Everyone read the question in English. Then, I asked the class what the question meant in Spanish. One student started translating it, and then a couple of others helped him finish the question. So now, everyone in the class heard the question in English, and in Spanish, so they knew what it meant. Normally, a few students will do the work, using dictionaries to figure out what the textbook is asking, and then the rest of the class will just copy these students when they're done. If Don Jesús noticed this trend, he hasn't done anything about it, so I haven't said anything, either. I figure if students are just going to copy one another anyway, it might be better if I at least get them speaking aloud in English to do the work.
So, now I knew that everyone understood what the question was asking, I repeated it again in English, looking for the answer. Various students blurted out answers and I repeated each response and said "very good." I wrote the answer on the board in a complete sentence, read it slowly, and then asked the class to read it to me.
Then the students would write down the answers.
I know this isn't the best method for teaching English, but I think it was a lot better than what they were doing before. We repeated this process for six questions. Some of the answers took a little more discussion before I wrote the final answer on the board. It took a while, but I still think it was more productive than letting a few students struggle to do the work by themselves and then just let everyone else copy. This way, everyone was engaged in speaking, hearing, reading, and writing English. After class, I asked the students in Spanish if they liked this way of answering questions or if they would rather work alone. Everyone said they liked this way better! So, that was a plus. I felt pretty good about that. Class ended early, at 10, and so I had three hours to kill until the next shift at 1. I had no way of getting back to Conny's house, and so I walked to the only place I knew to go in Caluco: Casa Maya. I had nothing to do. I already read most of my books, so I went to the bleachers by the concrete soccer stadium and watched some P.E. classes. I was still really tired from that morning, and it was already super hot, so I started nodding off even while watching exciting soccer matches. The kids were screaming and everything. By 11, both of the P.E. classes had left, and the stadium was empty. So, I walked to the far end of the bleachers, far from the road and close to a field of grazing cows, and I set my backpack down and laid down on the concrete, using my backpack as a pillow. I fell asleep. Maybe 40-50 minutes later, I woke up to the sound of voices behind me. I didn't move, but I heard one of the girls say my name, so I figured it was probably one of my students. I closed my eyes again and I heard a little girl's voice saying, "Are you sleeping? We're taking care of you." I dozed for a few minutes more before I decided to get up, since the girls were still there and I thought maybe I should be sociable. I know sleeping in public is probably not the best idea, and sleeping on the dirty bleachers with the ants might not have been a great idea, either, but I was far too exhausted to care. At any rate, the girls kept me safe while I napped.
When I looked up, I saw that one of the girls was Sara from Jacqueline's kindergarten class. With her was her sister, Eva, and another little girl I hadn't met before. We started chatting about school and cows and other things. Eva said that her mom saw me at the school yesterday and had made a comment to the girls about how beautiful my eyes were. :) I smiled and told her thank you. The girls offered me some mangos, which I graciously accepted. I'd only eaten a granola bar for lunch, and so I ate two of the mangos right away. They were perfectly ripe, succulent, sweet, and meaty, and not too stringy like the mangos peludos. They were delicious. I knew I'd regret eating mangos later (My investigations have indicated that fresh mangos here are incredibly powerful laxatives), but they were absolutely ambrosial, so I didn't care. While I was eating, Eva asked me if I taught English, and I said yes. I asked her if she knew any English words and she said "no." I smiled and said, "I know Sara knows some words in English!" Sara shyly smiled and said "no," she didn't. I held up my half-eaten mango and pointed at the flesh. "What color is this?" I asked, smiling. "Yellow!" said Sara. "Very good! See?" I said. "You do know some English!"
When Sara and her friend ran off to play, Eva started telling me about how she knows a whole bunch of songs for her church. She then started singing and dancing to show me all these songs that she has memorized. Eva told me yesterday that there are other gringos like me who came to El Salvador as missionaries for their church. I think she said she goes to an evangelical church.
Anyway, here are a couple videos of Eva and Sara singing. Sorry about the sound quality; my camera is pretty poor. The songs are basically about how powerful God is and how I know Jesus is still alive because I feel it in my heart and such. It's pretty sweet and uplifting. :)
Song 1
Song 2 (turn up the volume)
I hung out with the girls for about an hour, and then I walked back to the school for the afternoon shift with Don Carlos. I only work with Don Carlos on Friday afternoons, and today was my first Friday working with him. I was pretty excited; I have wanted to work with him since day one.
I LOVE how Don Carlos works with his students. Additionally, he reserved the computer lab today so that he could project scanned images of the workbook onto a projector so that all of the students can see what they're doing. One thing that Don Carlos does that Don Jesús does not is that he'll tell me exactly what the students will be doing BEFORE each class, so that I know what to prepare for. Class began with introductions, but we changed it up a little bit. The students were reading a dialogue between Letty and Maria that went something like this: "1: Hello, my name's______. I'm your classmate." 2:"Hi! My name's ____." 1: "What city are you from?" 2:"I'm from _______, and you?" 1:"I'm from __________." 2:"Okay, I talk to you later. After class." 1:"It's a good idea!" Don Carlos and I modeled this dialogue for the students. We took turns with the roles. Then, he asked all the students to pair up and read the dialogue to each other. The students would come to the front of the class and take turns in each role of the dialogue. I was very impressed with how well these students spoke English! And they're only in 7th grade, which is the first year that a full English class is taught! All of the students' English was understandable, although some of them spoke with a very good accent! After everyone participated in the exercise, Don Carlos picked up his guitar and all the kids sang a song about the greetings in English. Each verse was something like "Hello! Good morning to all my friends....Hello! Good afternoon to all my friends....Good evening....Goodbye! Nice to see you and have a nice day!" The kids all really got into singing the song. I love that Don Carlos uses music to get the students interested in the subject. After that song, he asked me if I knew "Old McDonald Had a Farm," and so then we all sang that song, too. After we sang about pigs, cats, dogs, ducks, chickens, and lambs, Don Carlos was about to put away his guitar but the kids started begging to sing "Happy and you Know it," so we sang that song, too. Before we began, I did make one minor correction to the lyrics that Don Carlos had. The song was "If you're happy and you know it, beat your feet," and even though I know that "beat your feet" technically works, I told Don Carlos that "stomp your feet" makes more sense. I used gestures and slowly pronounced the word "stomp" several times so that everyone understood how to say it, and then we started singing the song. It's no wonder that Don Carlos' students speak English better than Don Jesús' students, because the kids in this class sing songs and act out skits to actually practice speaking the language, whereas Don Jesús will just give the kids textbook photocopies and then tell them to read and write. They almost never speak. That's something I'll have to bring to his attention next week, and I will try to figure out a way to incorporate music and games into Don Jesús' classes. I also wonder how Don Carlos can use the computer lab, but Don Jesús doesn't. Anyway, class went really well. The kids worked on another activity where they matched English salutations and phrases with the Spanish equivalent.
Don Carlos really gets INTO his teaching, too! His English is WAY better than Don Jesús's (I can actually understand Don Carlos, but Don Jesús has such a thick accent that it's just better if we speak in Spanish), and he'll say each word or phrase of the activity so the students can listen to how to pronounce the word. He and I both read through the word list and the directions for the activity so that the students could hear the differences in pronunciation. He'll also act out the words that he says in English, and it's pretty funny sometimes. The kids actually pay attention to him because he's engaging. Furthermore, when some students peeked in the room and asked to talk to Don Carlos, instead of just leaving the class mid-activity and leaving the kids on their own, he actually said, "Just a moment," and finished his instruction and made sure the kids understood what they were doing before he went to the door to talk to the other students. Don Jesús just leaves.
I love the methods that Don Carlos uses. Many of his methods of engagement are methods that I've been taught at CWU, and are methods that research has shown to be more effective (like using music, skits, and such to get students engaged in the material). It's not even that I can say "Oh, I like how he teaches because I agree with his methods because they're similar to how I was taught to teach," but the proof is in the pudding. These kids, these seventh graders, already speak English very well. Their pronunciation is great and they have a much larger vocabulary committed to memory than do the students of Don Jesús because the students of Don Carlos actually actively practice speaking the language. Part of my job here as an intern is not just to "teach" or "take over a class" FOR the teacher, but I'm also here to teach the teachers how to teach English. I have a few suggestions in mind. :)
All in all, it was a great week, and it just so happened to end on a high note. I love working in the school.
I'm looking forward to this weekend, too, because I will finally get to go visit some Mayan ruins! Hooray!
I was exhausted after PE on Thursday. This was taken even after I'd rinsed my face repeatedly with water from my ice-water bottle.
I think I permanently stained that shirt. That was a hot day, and I ran three laps around a field for the PE class, and then we did jumping jacks and squats. Even my jean skirt was damp from sweat.
So, this happened. I made a calendar and stuck it on my wall. The little airplane drawing means that that's the day I go home.
Recess at Republica de China. The blue Pepsi Stand is called a Chalet (Shall-Et) and they sell soda, chips, candy, pizza, sandwiches, etc.
Friday's lesson: Comparative Adjectives. Students were having trouble forming complete sentences, so I provided examples on the board and re-explained the concept in Spanish. Everyone turned in complete sentences after that. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to use Spanish to teach English, and pretty proud of the kids for being patient with me and for picking up the concepts so quickly. They're a smart bunch. :)
Recess at Republica de China (centro parque building)
P.E.
I took a nap on the bleachers. When I woke up, these young'uns were chilling out on the row above me. I don't know the name of the girl on the left, but the middle girl is Eva and Sara is on the right.
This kid was using a slab of concrete to break mango pits and eat the seeds.
The Casa Maya P.E. teacher
A P.E. class
My bag and one of the computer tables
"The future interests me because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life."
"To invest in knowledge always produces the best benefits."
I have no idea if the video file uploaded properly, but this is Sara (one of the kinder students) and her sister Eva singing a song for me.
My row of bottles. I can't refill my water bottle when I'm in Caluco, and I have no way of getting back to Izalco on my 2-3 hour lunch break. So, I bought a small backpack last week so that I'd have enough room to bring LOTS of water to school with me. :) I usually drink one quart and three liters just in my 8 hours in Caluco. It's incredibly hot here, and I have to drink at least 1.5 gallons of water every day to stay hydrated.
students' garden of little plants in bottles. The newest addition is cilantro.
Left: Recess! Right: Nahuat, Spanish, English!
The official language of El Salvador is Castellano. Indigenous/local languages are supported, though, and that's why Nahuat is taught in schools!
Teacher's desk! The blue liquid is soap and the tulip cannister has toilet paper in it. :)
My skittish little roommate! I love geckos. They eat bugs; therefore, they're my friends.
Edit: So I'm posting my Friday's post on Saturday because my laptop was having some issues last night. Also, this post took me more than three hours to write. :P Sorry for cramming my whole week into one post, but I really didn't feel like writing when I was under the weather. Now, I'm back!
