So far, I’ve found that my teaching position is altogether in itself quite a strange experience. There is supposed to be another girl at the school, but she is having problems with her passport, and won’t be here for a few more weeks. This results in a game of hot potato at el instutito La laboral. I am that hot potato, and the teachers are passing me around like mononucleosis… sans interchange of saliva.
I walk briskly, but outrageously confused from classroom to classroom. With my laptop case and nifty memory stick, which has a master class powerpoint in its tightly packed electrical circuitry, I enter the class and am ogled like some piece of meat by 17 year old girls. Just kidding, that doesn’t really happen. Presenting brilliant word art from Microsoft Office, I stun the classes each time with the number of states in America. I ask them to guess how many states there are, while a picture of the country is up, and receive wonderful guestimates as 38, 27, and 55. To follow up I give them a picture of North Carolina, and ask that they guess how many counties there are (just to keep the whole math and language thing going). The three regions of my beautiful state are displayed with 2 large clouds for the mountains and coast, and a big happy face for the piedmont. Efficiently giving the smiley face a googly eye by putting a circle around Forsyth County, I usually get a laugh from the crowd. I show pictures of each region, and of course of Winston-Salem. “Now, who likes to go skiing” – queue Sugar Ski Mountain. “So who here likes the beach?” – queue Emerald Isle and the Outer Banks.
The difference in classes that I am placed in is quite diverse. Bachiller 1, 2, secretariano (people studying to get jobs as paper pushers I guess) The range of ages goes from 17-20somethings. Spanish students are quite shy, and are ashamed to speak another language in front of their classmates. I try to comfort them by telling them by saying, look where I am, and I wasn’t afraid to talk (god knows, we all know that) Next week, I will be taking on more hours. I have already been approached to give private classes. Logrono is really starting to warm up to me, and I to it. Monday is el festival de Pilar. This place will be locked down, no school, all party, get ready to get wild Logrono.
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3 comments:
Tomas, cuando estas tomandolo al "top"...podemos tener mas opciones por los reacciones?..."funny" "interesting" and "cool" are not close to creative enough for this situation.
I love that you're teaching them about good ole' NC. I wonder, are there any outspoken individuals in class, or are they all shy?
There are definitely some who answer me when I ask questions, and understand, but they just happen to have a gift for the language, and sometimes are from other countries that have a more profound background in English. Language happens to hinder individuals from showing their true potential as it is outside their comfort zone and against the language barrier. Plenty of friends and family are smarter than me, but just havn't the gift for language, or havn't studied it as much.
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