Preparing for camp and meeting part of the crew
Second week here in Medina de Pomar. Things are still good, and I am still learning about the culture and the nature of teaching everyday. There is still a week before the official summer school will begin. This week, I got to work with a handful of the students from the colegio (primary school). This week, I really tried to take stock of how much English the students already know. I was able to create some activities and try-out some screwball teaching ideas that I have had before the summer camp has officially started.
I tested the students' knowledge of how to introduce themselves, colors, animals, and numbers. Just like you would expect with any class, I noticed that there was certainly a range of levels within the group. Most of the students knew the colors, how to count to 10, and some animals (mostly pets). I was surprised to see the shyness that the students had in attempting to speak English to me. There was a real hesitance in some of the students to answer questions that I asked even though I knew they knew the answer because they would say it in Spanish and they were able to clearly pronounce the word when they did say it in English. Introductions, in general, seemed to be difficult for the students. I would ask "what is your name?" and in many cases struggle to get a response. I slowed down my speech and I used gestures to emphasize my meaning. This seemed to help. I also encouraged them to use the sentence stem "my name is ___________". It was a bit of a struggle, but it felt like a real success when the student would actually use the sentence stem. I noticed that modeling was important in teaching the language.
It was important to me that I build a bond with my students in the first couple of days and create an atmosphere of fun so that the students would feel comfortable talking to me and so that they would have a positive attitude toward English learning. For this reason, I tried to create a lot of game based learning activities. We did a obstacle course, raced across the field, made paper airplanes, and played with career based figurines. It interesting to see the activities that went well versus the activities that tanked. Some of the lessons that I thought would work out great didn't work very well at all, while other lessons that I threw together quickly worked wonders. It did become apparent that the students were more likely to open up when they were doing something fun.
It was incredible to see how well the students could follow directions if I spoke concisely, used gestures, and gave the students a clear sense of the context. I also developed a clear sense of how to manage the students behavior. All in all, I had a good week, and I think that the kids did too. I'll keep you up to date on how the next week goes. Wish me luck!
-Lindsey
I tested the students' knowledge of how to introduce themselves, colors, animals, and numbers. Just like you would expect with any class, I noticed that there was certainly a range of levels within the group. Most of the students knew the colors, how to count to 10, and some animals (mostly pets). I was surprised to see the shyness that the students had in attempting to speak English to me. There was a real hesitance in some of the students to answer questions that I asked even though I knew they knew the answer because they would say it in Spanish and they were able to clearly pronounce the word when they did say it in English. Introductions, in general, seemed to be difficult for the students. I would ask "what is your name?" and in many cases struggle to get a response. I slowed down my speech and I used gestures to emphasize my meaning. This seemed to help. I also encouraged them to use the sentence stem "my name is ___________". It was a bit of a struggle, but it felt like a real success when the student would actually use the sentence stem. I noticed that modeling was important in teaching the language.
It was important to me that I build a bond with my students in the first couple of days and create an atmosphere of fun so that the students would feel comfortable talking to me and so that they would have a positive attitude toward English learning. For this reason, I tried to create a lot of game based learning activities. We did a obstacle course, raced across the field, made paper airplanes, and played with career based figurines. It interesting to see the activities that went well versus the activities that tanked. Some of the lessons that I thought would work out great didn't work very well at all, while other lessons that I threw together quickly worked wonders. It did become apparent that the students were more likely to open up when they were doing something fun.
It was incredible to see how well the students could follow directions if I spoke concisely, used gestures, and gave the students a clear sense of the context. I also developed a clear sense of how to manage the students behavior. All in all, I had a good week, and I think that the kids did too. I'll keep you up to date on how the next week goes. Wish me luck!
-Lindsey
Pictures from inside la guarderia:
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