Well, last week it finally happened. Things finally started sort-of coming together! We got a make shift, slightly confusing, rough draft of our schedule from the school. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet in my blog, but the government of Burgos (the province that Miranda is a part of) has requested that Ariela and I be shared among a number of different schools. So that means that In addition to working in the bilingual high school that we were assigned to, they would like us to get around to FOUR other elementary schools too. Of course we only work 12 hours per week, so for Ariela and I (between the 2 of us) to be in 3 schools /week (the high school + 2 elementarys each) is a little complicated.
Anyways, what they’ve figured out is we will each spend 3 hours/week at an elementary school and 9 hours at the high school. Because we each have to go to 2 elementary schools, we have to rotate weeks. So Week 1: I spend 3 hours at Cervantes Elementary and 9 hours at the High school, and Week 2: I spend 3 hours at Los Angeles Elementary and 9 at the High School. Both Ariela and I are skeptical that this is a good use of our time here, as a total of 6 hours/month at an elementary is basically nothing. On top of that, when Ariela had her first elementary visit this morning they told her she would visit each class only once a month since each time she visits she will change classes. Seems a little crazy.
A couple weeks ago, we got a phone call from a man who runs a private English academy, giving English classes to people of all ages. He was really interested in having us work for him since we are native speakers. We ended up decided to pick up a few extra hours with him in the afternoons, so my schedule is something like this:
Monday - Day Off
Tuesday- School: 8:45 - 2:30 Academy 4:00 - 6:00/7:00
Wednesday- School: 8:45 - 2:30 Academy 4:00 - 6:00/7:00
Thursday- School 8:45 - 2:30 / 3:30 - 5:00
Friday- School 8:45 - 12:00
* The “School’s” hours are the hours that classes take place, but I only work an average of about 2 or 3 hours per day during those hours
I’m really happy with the schedule as it leaves lots of free time after the Academy and on the weekends.
The last week Ariela and I worked the full 12 hours in the High School, each of those 12 hours spent introducing ourselves to a new classroom full of kids of different ages between 12-18. I’ve really noticed that there is such varying levels of English, anywhere from not even understanding “Where are you from?” or “How old are you?” (which drives Ariela crazy!) to students that are able to form a proper sentence and also have the confidence to say it out loud! What we’ve been told about Spaniards is that they often won’t speak in English unless they are sure that the sentence is flawless, and because English really isn’t an easy language to SPEAK, they end up never knowing how to say what they want to say, and therefore, never speaking. Mertxe, a new friend of ours, brought to our attention a possible reason that French, Spanish, and Italian people have such difficulty with English. She reminded us that in Romance/Latin languages, most of the time each letter (vowel/consonant) only has ONE sound. For example “E” in Spanish can ONLY be pronounced like “eh”, never any other way. English on the other hand is REALLY not like that. Because in English we can have 3+ ways to use the “E” . Anyhow. Ariela and I might have slightly overestimated the English level of our students, but luckily we aren’t the actual “teachers” and explaining grammar issues is up to the them. Our job is just to pretend like we don’t know any Spanish, and try and get them to spit out any sort of words in English. ☺ Most of them are really nice, and really are showing interest, which is exciting and motivating. What I’m really looking forward to is seeing how much progress they can make by the end of the school year!
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