Valentine's Day is happy for us for several reasons. We left a gift of candy at the house for all the team and returned to find gifts of candy for us as well. We also gave gifts of red licorice to our students in Munoces this morning to help teach the color red and the phrase "Thank You". We are thinking of all our friends and family today and wishing you all a very happy day.
We now have a couple of days of teaching under our belts and we have both successes and failures to report. First the basics....Each day we go out to the little village of Munoces with the teachers in the back of an ancient pick-up truck. It is a long, bumpy hour of travel with a 20 minute walk from the road to the school at the end. By the time we get to school we are covered with dust, only to be greeted by students in blindingly white shirts and navy pants or skirts. How they appear so clean when they live in dust and have little water is beyond our ability to understand. We have been invited to teach in both the classrooms at the little school in Munoces. Both the teachers and all the students have been very welcoming. We have gone into both days with lesson plans and have found that we need to adjust on the fly. This isn't surprising, of course, but it is more difficult to adjust with our limited Spanish. And "team teaching" requires that we work together flawlessly....when one "hits a wall" (so to speak) the other jumps in to try a different way. We think we were expecting too much of the younger students and are adjusting our lessons accordingly. The older class is really soaking it all up with great enthusiasm and we're having a good time. They keep us busy just trying to keep up with them. Pronunciation is one of the biggest problems. Just as rolling R's at the beginning of words is a problem for us, t's and y's and m's and n's are difficult to say for a spanish speaker. Their teacher is excited about the opportunity, too, and is enjoying learning correct pronunciation to words he knows but can't really say correctly. We had hoped to offer classes to those "middle school" students who don't go to school until the afternoon in El Tablon or to interested adults in the community but so far that hasn't developed. We don't know if it's a lack of interest or a failure of communication. Anyway, it has been a challege and a reward. If it's possible to hold both at the same time, we are both dreading and looking forward to a whole 3 weeks of this!
We now have a couple of days of teaching under our belts and we have both successes and failures to report. First the basics....Each day we go out to the little village of Munoces with the teachers in the back of an ancient pick-up truck. It is a long, bumpy hour of travel with a 20 minute walk from the road to the school at the end. By the time we get to school we are covered with dust, only to be greeted by students in blindingly white shirts and navy pants or skirts. How they appear so clean when they live in dust and have little water is beyond our ability to understand. We have been invited to teach in both the classrooms at the little school in Munoces. Both the teachers and all the students have been very welcoming. We have gone into both days with lesson plans and have found that we need to adjust on the fly. This isn't surprising, of course, but it is more difficult to adjust with our limited Spanish. And "team teaching" requires that we work together flawlessly....when one "hits a wall" (so to speak) the other jumps in to try a different way. We think we were expecting too much of the younger students and are adjusting our lessons accordingly. The older class is really soaking it all up with great enthusiasm and we're having a good time. They keep us busy just trying to keep up with them. Pronunciation is one of the biggest problems. Just as rolling R's at the beginning of words is a problem for us, t's and y's and m's and n's are difficult to say for a spanish speaker. Their teacher is excited about the opportunity, too, and is enjoying learning correct pronunciation to words he knows but can't really say correctly. We had hoped to offer classes to those "middle school" students who don't go to school until the afternoon in El Tablon or to interested adults in the community but so far that hasn't developed. We don't know if it's a lack of interest or a failure of communication. Anyway, it has been a challege and a reward. If it's possible to hold both at the same time, we are both dreading and looking forward to a whole 3 weeks of this!
Remember that we walked around Berlin several times this weekend and encouraged people to come to our English class here at Casa Pastoral in the afternoons? Well, we had our first class yesterday and 2 people showed up! They were 2 bright, enthusiastic 15 year olds and we had great fun working with them. Today they returned and brought a friend so we now have 3 bright 15 year olds to work with in the afternoon....great fun.
So now as we get ready for an early night (5 AM comes mighty early!) we are sending our love and good wishes your way. Happy Valentine's Day.
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