Our first six weeks with Teacher Melanie!

Our first six weeks with Teacher Melanie!

Now that I’m adjusted to my new life here in Spain, let me tell you about these amazing first six weeks…

I am the Auxiliar or Culture and Language Assistant here at CEIP Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar and my role is to encourage conversation and introduce relevant American culture into the classroom. Let me say…this is THE BEST job I’ve ever had! I am showered with love and appreciation and I get to use fun activities to get students involved in their curriculum. I think the one thing that I have been shocked by is how much I am truly able to teach the students. When I have their full attention I am able to introduce new subject matter and they walk away with knowledge and new confidence in their English. There is no better feeling!

On my first day in the first grade classrooms, I was met with excitement and blank stares after I spoke. I think my American accent was surprising to them and it seems they had a difficult time understanding me. I was nervous after this. I thought I wouldn’t be able to teach them much but by week four I knew I’d made a breakthrough and I was confident we’d be productively learning together for the rest of the school year! Here are some highlights:

SCIENCE

The first two weeks we spent time getting to know each other and I used the time to understand the routine of the classes. By week three and four we were learning about our city and road safety. To reinforce road safety, I created a game called “Red Man Green Man”. I used our American game “Red Light Green Light” as inspiration. In this game the class went to the patio and were instructed to find a partner because we should never cross the road alone. They then had to shout “Red Man Green Man” to me and I would indicate with words and colors whether they were allowed to cross the road or not, and numbers to indicate how far they could go. The goal was to get to the other side before the Red Man appeared.

The students had a blast playing this game! They used speaking to ask for their chance to cross, listening to hear the response and counting to take each number of steps they were given. When I could not get them to start over I would turn into a car in the road and they were sent running to the other side. I’m not sure if I had more fun or them! One student even asked the following class period if we were going to play again.

In weeks four and five we learned the Three Stages of Matter with an in-class experiment. At each table we melted a piece of ice in an oil burner as the students observed. They recorded each phase with drawings in their notebooks and excitedly watched as the heat turned ice into water, water vapor and then into nothing over time!

This was a fun activity as the students were very involved and making observations ahead of my instruction. It’s always exciting when your students start teaching you! To go from that first day, which was likely, scary for them and for me, to this activity where they fully understood the concept and activity in English was a breakthrough. One of the classes was even chanting the word “English” as I walked in the door! They’ve become excited about learning in English...what a feeling!

In week six we started an activity to try growing our own plants. We planted our seeds in cotton and left them to sprout over the weekend. My fingers are crossed that on Monday we have some sprouts so that we can do the same activity with both classes!

ART

In arts and crafts we have a more casual classroom environment. I give instructions on the activity and then walk from table to table assisting and asking questions. So far in this six weeks we have learned about warm and cool colors and landscapes. They’ve created some beautiful pieces and we sang a song in class about warm and cool colors.

Last week we began animals and I taught the students how to make their own hand puppet. They really enjoyed this activity and were even making more than one puppet. The goal was to create an animal puppet and have a conversation in English with their puppet friends. I’m excited to hear from them next week on what they talked about!

Outside of traditional classroom instruction I also took the opportunity to teach about Martin Luther King Jr on MLK Day. I also made sure to bring a little bit of the American style of holiday celebrations for Valentine's Day by giving the students candy and a Valentine treat to keep and to share. At the end of the school day I could see that they had shared all of their stickers with their friends and were enjoying their lollipops...ahh spreading love! :) <3