A Aprender

I have begun my alleged Student Teaching Experience, which, in keeping with the general theme of my truly adorable and well-intentioned but mildly disfunctional Spanish school, consists of me being tossed unsupervised into the mix of a public girl´s school and allowed to do pretty much whatever I want with two different classes for about an hour each, because it is Good for The Children to Be Exposed to English.

All righty then. I began with a mini-assessment, teaching the kids the word ¨to know¨, then explaining that I wanted to know about the English that they know. Divided the kids into groups of two, gave each set a plate and a handful of dry beans, told them to take turns picking up one bean at a time and saying one word of English for every bean they put on the plate. Modeled, ¨I know ´cat´¨, ¨I know ´yellow´¨, etc.

It worked pretty well, because it allowed me to circulate the room and listen in on kids, rather than subject anyone to the interminable sitting through one-on-one assessment. Most kids had a few colors, some numbers, a fair amount of animals and a random body part or two, so go ´head with your bad selves, previous Student Teaching Experience Volunteers.

We then did a KWL sort of chart, with one side being what they already knew and another side being what they wanted to know. Which gave me a chance to take stock of some truly terrifying pronunciation issues, as when one innocent eight year old raised her hand to announce that she knew...

¨FOREPLAY!¨

Er, otra vez?

¨FOREPLAY!¨

I looked at her, completely unsure of how best to respond. Earlier that day, I´d been paging through the national newspaper, and discovered that the pull-out youth section did, in fact, have a cover story on erections (last week it had been periods, cuz they´re egalitarian that way). So it was entirely possible, I figured, but still...

A classmate saved me with the Spanish translation. Morada. Purple. Pronounced, if you´re gonna read it like a Spanish word and lisp a bit initially, foreplay. We went on through several colors, my equilibrium restored.

Then it came time for the ¨we WANT to know¨ part, which was pretty awesome. More colors, numbers up to 100, people in the family. A Hermione-like girl, whose hand had been shooting up constantly throughout all parts of the lesson, requested the names of all planets in the solar system and a unit on aquatic animals. Geometric figures. Plants. How to say ¨friend.¨

I`ve been using the print-out Teaching Extras from a really awesome site, www.kizclub.com , as a resource in developing lessons (Hermione will be delighted by the printouts on both Ocean Life and Solar System, but I think I´ll sneak her those after the more basic lessons). So far, the kids are loving it, and I´m pretty happy, too.