I have had several questions while I have been here about my life as an English teacher. It has been five months already and I realize that I have not fully explained on the blog my weekly routine at the school. Well, allow me to explain what I do and then I'll give you an example to go along with it.
Monday
I do not give classes at the "cole" or school as my position is only part-time, but in the evening I give two private classes to students.
Tuesday
School starts at 9:30. I arrive and teach my second graders for the day. School ends at 4:30 but then I give one extra private class in the evening.
Wednesday
I will admit that Wednesdays are my more difficult days. Difficult, meaning, mentally difficult. I begin the day with teaching sixth graders. Then I switch schools half-way through to give classes in an early childhood classroom. Going from thirteen years old to three years old is quite the change. Let me tell you. Then, I go back to my original school to work with my fourth graders in the afternoon. Whew! But not done yet. After school I give yet again another private class. If you are a teacher, you can imagine the mental stress I have that day to adapt to several age ranges. Each class is new and fun in its own way but by the end I am in need of some sort of energy release. Which is why I have picked up a spinning class at a gym on that particular evening.
Thursday
This day is the longest, in hours, meaning. I spend the majority of the day working with first graders but then in the afternoon I spend one class with fourth graders. After school, I give two extra private classes.
Friday
Since Thursday is my longest day, I am very grateful to not have classes in the morning. Only one private class in the afternoon and the rest of the day is mine. All for me.
However, I have already filled you in on what I do in my free time. What I have not told you is about the classes themselves. What do I teach? How do I teach it?
Question #1: What do I teach?
I teach English. Period. I do not teach the grammar though. I teach the culture by speaking in its language.
Question #2: How do I teach it?
Ahhh. The joys of teaching a second language. You can be as creative as you want. Plain and simple. We sing songs. We play games. We read stories. We dance. We do skits. We watch video clips. We analyze songs. In the end, we have fun while we learn.
Which is exactly how I bring myself to tell you about The Three Little Pigs. For the last few weeks, I have been working with my first and second graders on the story of The Three Little Pigs. Because last week, we took a field trip to Bilbao to see a play done in English about it. In order to prepare the students for an hour long play in English, I took time in class for the last few weeks to present key vocabulary and also songs that would be sung in the play.
This last Wednesday was the big day where over a hundred of us loaded the buses to go to Bilbao and see the play. I was so proud of my students. The play was interactive with the audience. Meaning, the actors on stage encouraged involvement from the students to sing the songs and answer questions. I am sure I am a bit biased considering that they are my students but I felt like our school knew the lyrics and vocabulary the best.
Even more proud I was after the play when we all went to the park and the children were still singing the songs. An English teacher's job like mine here in Spain is to encourage students to speak in the second language. So when students came up to me in the park to sing the songs again and to try speaking the limited English that they knew with me, I could not have had a more prouder moment as a teacher. For I came here in hopes to motivate students in a new language, and I feel like The Three Little Pigs has helped be to do just that.
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