Diary of a Spanish Education Major

Don't breathe on me!!

2012-02-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

Everyone is sick. A good chunk of my friends at school are living off of soup and coughing everywhere, and today 99 students were absent from the high school. My co-op told me that's about an eighth of student body that is either out sick or enjoying an impromptu three day weekend.

I find myself using hand sanitizer like I'm being paid and keeping everyone at arms length (literally), because I know getting sick would be one of the worst things to happen during this semester. There's so much going on that I just can't afford to lose any time sleeping afternoons away and working at half speed.

So here's to antibacterial soap, vitamin C, and hoping I stay healthy until Spring Break!

What they don't tell you in teacher school

2012-02-01T09:23:00.000-08:00

So today in first period we had a really strong gas smell. Not headache causing craziness, just enough to cause confusion. The whole language wing of the school smelled like a broken Bunsen burner. We kept teaching, but another teacher came in and asked if we smelled it too, while a student who showed up late mentioned that they were talking about it in the office. It was enough where I half expected the school to send us outside, but they never did. Later I found out that it was just our section of the school; a girl I know who also is doing her field there said they couldn't smell anything. So we just opened the windows and moved on (after figuring out if it helped more to keep the door open or shut. Turns out it didn't really matter).

It wasn't too bad though, other than the obvious annoyance of the smell. Jokes were cracked and the kids seemed in good spirits.

The calm lasted about 10 minutes.

Then the whining started, along with the complaints of headaches, not being able to stand it anymore, and, my personal favorite, the Oh My Gosh If We Don't Get Out Of Here We're All Going To Die. These were funny for about 3 seconds, but they got old really quickly. It really wasn't that bad. I wanted to tell the little sweethearts that no, you're not going to die, if you were we'd probably have left already. But we just shushed them and moved on with our activity, which included some partner competition which magically seemed to make the headaches go away.

Since it wasn't a huge crisis, it wasn't terrible and it was a good experience to have. However, I started wondering about what I would have done had I been there alone, along with thinking about all the other possible situations no one prepares you for. My co-op contributed some stories of her own, so at least if I get a situation about highlighter attacks or tampon throwing (I kid you not), I'll know how someone else handled it.

But still, I'm a little anxious to see what they throw at me in the future...

Awesomeness

2012-01-30T08:59:00.000-08:00

After 2 weeks in my school, I've decided that I got so lucky with my cooperating teacher. She basically told me that for my first lesson I could have free reign and do whatever I want (obviously she gave me the vocab and the timeline of the next week). Not only that, but she's told me on numerous occasions that she'd love to hear any ideas I have for anything she's doing or that might come up. She also sends me back to school with new papers, copies of quizes/activities/tests, booklets, catalogues for supplies, mad-libs books, and readers (which was today's little gift, scholastic readers in Spanish that read like regular magazines) that I could use in the future. She's just so willing to share everything she has with me along with asking me for ideas, which makes it feel more like collaborative relationship as opposed to teacher/college kid.

I also love my classes. The students are so unique it's insane. Their interests are all over the map, and so are their styles, but they all seem to get along. Sure there are little groups, but no one seems to hate or not be able to tolerate anyone else. One girl, who I've taken to calling 80's Girl, always has big hair (dyed pink and blue at the ends), intense make up, and really awesome outfits right out of a Brat Pack movie. She appears like she'd be really intimidating, sort of rough around the edges. Yet the two she hangs out with before and during class are the nerdy boy who has a backpack the size of his body and a girl who I know participates in a lot of school sports. And they're not the only cases like that, either. All three sections have cool, mixed groups like this.

Hopefully the whole school is like this, not just the parts I see!

Who needs a secret language?

2012-01-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

So on Wednesday I finally started my junior field experience at a not so local high school (it's almost a 40 minute drive, which is super fun at 6 in the morning...), and I love it! I see 3 Spanish II classes while I'm there, and while seeing the same lesson taught three times in a row isn't exactly fun, it's really going to give me the chance to compare the dynamics, students, and different working styles during the classes. Even though I've only been there for a few days I'm already seeing how different the sets of students really are.

But that's not the reason I wanted to post. I just wanted to share a quick little story about ~~being bilingual~~ reason number 472 why it's awesome to know another language.

My co-op (cooperating teacher, or mentor teacher) came up to me yesterday while the students were working in pairs to make signs for the upcoming market day and started speaking to me in Spanish. I was a little confused since we always had spoken in English, but I went with it since I grab any chance I can to practice. But then I realized why she did. She was pointing out a pair of students to me and was making one of those "they're so going to get married when they're older" comments (which I completely agree with by the way, you could see it just by watching them interact for a couple minutes). It's not like she hid it because she was saying anything bad, it was just not one of those things that you generally talk about within earshot of students.

And then I realized just how cool that moment really was. Instead of having to stand in the corner and whisper or waiting until after class, we got to make our "aw how cute!" comments and move on all while keeping an eye on the students and talking at a normal volume. There's so much freedom!

Now that's not to say that I think foreign language teachers (or anyone who speaks another language for that matter) should use their knowledge to talk about others while they're in the room. But there are so many times this could be useful for teachers, from discussing tests to disaster drills; anything that would normally be kept to hushed discussions in the back of the room, emails, and those phone calls that are taken in the hallway behind the closed door (which we've all seen a teacher do at least once in our school careers). The way I see it, you can still keep an eye on your class while taking less time to pass along semi-private information. Sure you still get the nosy student questions like, "what did you talk about?" or "what's going on??" but when do those ever actually go away?

Who knows, maybe I'm just getting really excited over something little and seeing a big exciting revelation in a 30 second conversation. Or maybe I just found another response to use when someone looks at me and says, "I just don't get the point of trying to learn a second language."

And yes, I do get that comment. Way more frequently than I would like to.

The best fundraiser

2011-10-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

Today I got the opportunity to go visit a local school during what I'm told is their biggest fundraiser of the year. This is an international school for children of missionaries, government and embassy workers, etc who are living long-term in Argentina. So naturally, there are many different countries and cultures represented at this school, and every year they hold an international day.

When I was invited I was picturing something along the lines of a few booths set up in a gym or maybe a courtyard if it was nice out, with some food and entertainment here or there. But what the event ended up being was this huge international fair in the courtyard of the school (it was a beautiful day). Booths selling cultural food and sometimes products were created by so many different countries, from India to the UK, Brazil to Kuwait, Mexico to Canada, and everywhere in between. The food stands each had amazing food, and there was a parade at the beginning where all the countries were announced as the students and their families did a lap holding flags, wearing their nations colors, and some wearing traditional dress.

There was also really unique entertainment throughout the afternoon as well. The school band played which totally brought out my inner band nerd, songs were sung in various languages by students, there were Korean hip hop dancers, a man played bagpipes, little Indian girls danced...we never knew what to expect next.

I honestly don't know much about this school, but if the school as a whole is half as well done as this event then the students are very lucky. You could tell that the community they've created cares about the students, and while every culture is obviously proud of their background, it's apparent that they all successfully merge into one whole student body without lines drawn in the sand.

Make class worthwhile

2011-10-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

I am generally one of those students who always does homework, studies like crazy, pays attention, and doesn't skip class unless I'm pretty sick/it's one of those awful days when the alarm clock doesn't go off. But today I broke one of my personal unwritten rules and skipped my class, and I don't feel bad for two reasons: 1, because it's a non-mandatory recuperation class for a day the instructor didn't show up. And 2, I decided that it would be a better use of my time to instead work on my final essays/projects/presentations. Based on the class this instructor gave yesterday (where he spent 45 minutes talking to himself before leaving the room as we took a 20 question quiz that meant nothing), I knew that going today would have been a waste of my time. And then I wondered what he would say if he knew that's the reason I wasn't there today.

Over the course of the last 3 months I've spent at this Argentine university, this instructor has indirectly taught me a lot about what kind of teacher I don't want to be (there are other posts coming on those topics...) and now I get to add one more lesson to the list: making students feel like they should be there.

First let me begin by saying that I have no illusions. I want to teach middle school Spanish, and I know that my students won't be bounding into my room every single day with a huge smile, excited to begin that day's class with attentive eagerness. Of course I would love for it to be that way, but I know things happen. Students have bad days, they get cranky, or it's beautiful outside and they'd rather be out playing soccer instead of listening to me talk about verbs. But I never want a student to feel that being in my class is a waste of their time. Ever. To me that's one of the biggest slaps in the face a teacher can get.

I want my classes to be worthwhile. Even on the days that I don't have games or songs or any of that other "fun" stuff planned, I want the students to feel like they're learning, or at least like they should be there. It just amazes me how comfortable this instructor is with not only wasting our time, but really his own as well.

Let's get started!

2011-10-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

As I was furiously scribbling a note to myself about a game I could use when I teach (in the middle of my Estudios Culturales class no less), I realized how slightly ridiculous I was being since I knew the chances of me finding the note again/remembering it was there/seeing it again were pretty slim. During my sophomore field experience last year I started a giant binder of worksheets, game templates, and lesson ideas that I was accumulating throughout the course of the ten or so weeks I was in the school. The ideas and lessons in that binder are all safely together and organized. However, I am currently studying abroad in Argentina and did not lug the heavy, 3 inch binder with me. Which means any idea I may have/material I find here get scribbled into a notebook or shoved in my textbook where they may or may not even make it back to the apartment. And then it hit me: lots of teachers have blogs, I'm planning on having a teaching blog eventually, so why not start now? I could write down ideas, lessons, what I'm learning in my classes, anything.

Also, I'm one of those people who gets ideas at random times where I either have no one to share them with, nowhere to write them down, or or some other situation that causes me to inevitably either forget it completely or have a half baked idea that won't work because I couldn't work through it. But I think having a blog to share my thoughts and hopefully get some feedback will be fantastic. And who knows, maybe I'll learn something that someone else needs to learn, too.

I have no idea how many people, if any, will read this blog. It's just one of those things that hit me and I decided I needed to start right now. But I definitely think it's worth a try, even if all it does is help me remember lessons I've learned and mistakes I've made.

I have no idea how consistent my posting will be, especially while I'm still studying abroad. But I have a really good feeling about this and will try to make it great.