Teaching English

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Hello all!

So yesterday I substitute taught for a friend of mine Steven. He needed to go to San Jose to renew his passport, so I told him I would do it. I went to his class Friday to observe and meet the kids. Wow. He had his third grade class first and they seemed a little out of control and to not know English very well yet. Then we went to his second grade class who I had met before through volunteering. They were very sweet and controlled and had a good grasp of what they were learning. I was expecting to have an easy time with the second grade class and a hard time with the third grade.

I was wrong.

Eric came to help me with my first class on Monday, which was second grade. He gave me a little feedback and helped come up with some activities. He left about 30 min. before the class ended to go surf, leaving me to the small, wild creatures! The class is an hour and 20 min. first of all, so it's very hard to keep a 7 year-old's attention for that long. As soon as it was just me there, the kids went wild. The last 15 to 20 min. of the class they were running around and jumping on each other and doing all kinds of stuff. So, I just stopped each one individually and went over their work with them. lol. I'm not sure how much good that did.

The second class was third grade, who I thought were crazy before. They were actually very well behaved and knew a lot more English than I gave them credit for. We had a fun time with all of our activities in that class. The kids think it's fun to try and talk to me in Spanish and see if I know what they're saying. I think it's fun to pretend not to know what they're saying and tell them to say it in English.

Overall, it was a fun experience. I have to go back today to teach 1 more class.... the second graders!!!! Yikes!!! Hopefully today they will be more calm b/c I don't know if I'll have Eric with me. He is surfing now and may not want to go with me later.

Things are fine other than that. We are waiting to hear whether I got the internship to work with the sea turtles this fall. Also, for those of you who don't know, I OFFICIALLY GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL!!!! Yay!!! I was just a nondegree student for the first 2 semesters and I had to submit my official application to become a real graduate student. Now I'm in and looking forward to having a master's degree by December 2010 or May 2011!

Ok, I have to go clean some more stuff. We had 3 girls leave today so there's 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms that need cleaning.

Pura vida!!!!

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Comments

[Chris]

YAY
Congratulations on Grad School and I think its cute you are working with kids :D