I started teaching math last week. I am trying my best to move them away from simply doing work in their workbooks. Activities that require more materials, prep work, classroom management, and (again) more "metering la pata." For the most part things went well. It is a completely different experience teaching students with English as their second language. These students understand really well, but their language production is low. Some of my favorite things: They still mix up his/her and he/she. They say adorable things like "the house of my grandma" instead of "my grandma's house" (because that's how possession goes in Spanish.) Every day I am learning more about the English language ... or rather, what I DON'T know about the English language. Let's just say that I am so glad it is not MY second language. With these students, you have to allow for a little more time in lessons and a lot more patience...just because it takes them a little bit longer to answer/ask questions.
One tiny mistake I ALMOST made (luckily the teacher was there before the students came in to point out my mistake). I had written on the board "put a +" and "put a -" for an activity. The teacher came in and pointed out that the "put" and the "a" were kinda close together and reminded me that the word "puta" in Spanish is a bad word. And even though these kids MAY not know what that word means, she suggested I change it. So I changed it to "write a." Whew, avoided metering that pata.
My classroom
José
Luca and Lucía
Marta (it was her birthday this day)
Laura (also her birthday)
This sign was on the bathroom door. It made me laugh.
Jesus is the name of the janitor.
Other thoughts during the week:
It's crazy how easy our first language comes to us. We take advantage of how easy it is to speak it. You don't even have to think about it really. Yeah, sure, you take time to find the right words when trying not hurt someone's feelings or when trying to sound intelligent. But mostly, you do not use a lot of brain power with your first language.
In my efforts to speak Spanish I had this thought. I also, at times, just have to give up speaking cause I simply don't have the vocabulary to say all that is in my head. I'm not giving up like giving up hope or the effort...I just get the basic gist of my thought across, but if I were speaking English, I would've said a lot more. I realize that this probably has to happen with my students. There are probably many times that I won't know the true essence of what they're saying either because they can't express it yet in English, or there is just something lost in translation. Anyway...
Other things this week:
We had two family dinners in our apartment
Fajita Family Dinner
Man I love guac... makes me miss you Kim, Dan, and Maf!
Wednesday night (Jan 26) we went to a local bar for flamenco dancing.
The singer/dancers weren't all decked out in costume or anything, but it was an interesting experience and it was a more intimate/coffee house type setting.
Lots of clapping and stomping with flamenco. Also, flamenco singing is a little intense. It is very expressive and full of emotion. When the music is sad, it is really sad...like the singer wailing into the microphone. And when it's happy... well that's when the clapping and dancing happens. One of the song lyrics said "When I laugh I am happy, but when I am sad I cry, " which (to me), sums up essence of flamenco. Feel what you feel and show it. Someone else told me that in order to truly sing flamenco, one has to have had a for real tragedy in your life. After hearing this woman sing, I believe it. I likened it to the blues. When the lady first started singing, I kinda wanted to laugh. Not because I was making fun of her. But because it's that kind of raw, exposed performance that makes you a little uncomfortable at first. Like during those intense poetry readings in little coffee houses. Or kind of like how my friend Mailin laughs at funerals, or when other people cry. Discomfort is best expressed with a giggle. After the initial discomfort, I really liked it. With or without an EXTREME tragedy, I think sitting on a stage and bellering out your sorrows or joys would be very therapeutic for most people. Pictures were kinda dark. Hope the video works.
Singer and Guitar man
I don't think it's really the type of music you listen to while cruising around town.
Then some dancers came out
Singing Video
Dancing Video (probably too dark)
Friday:
Went to the market
Ham
Ham toes
Turkey toes... still some feathers there if you look close.
Another family dinner with Chris's chicken dish.
Some of the family
Next, we went on a mission to find the fireworks that were supposed to be going
off around 1:00 a.m.
Took a cab a little ways....still no fireworks. Solution = take lots of group photos.
Trying to stay warm in between these four column things.
The girls
Obsessed with one another
Then, as we were just wondering through empty streets, we heard them! Fireworks! But we couldn't see them! So we all just took off running in the direction of the boom boom sounds. And FINALLY, we found them!
Not sure what the exact reason was for the fireworks. Valencia doesn't really need one. Fireworks will sometimes just randomly shoot off and only last like 47 seconds. But this one lasted about 5 minutes.
Next, it was off to the club, Las Animas. I wanted to leave the second I arrived. Pretty much just held this column up in the middle of the dance floor the whole time I was there.
Saturday night:
Trying to find a restaurant that accepts our student food stamps
We stumbled upon the other towers in town (not the ones outside my window)
Finding a restaurant can easily take up to an hour. So we stopped to get a snack.
MMMM Carrot cupcake
Sunday gets it's own post since it was an all day adventure.
It seems the good life - la buena vida is a hard one... no wonder you are exhausted.
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