First day of escuela!!!

Went pretty well I think. I know I'm not fooling most of them about speaking Spanish. It's hard I don't know if I should interpret things for them or answer their questions when they ask in Spanish. I kept catching myself wanting to say "chicos" and "escuchame". It's definitely the easier way to teach but I do realize it's not as effective. By the last class I definitely saw the students working harder to think of things in English because they knew I wasn't going to speak or react to Spanish. Although they also lean on the more advanced students to listen and just tell them in Spanish. It's going to be a challenge to get them to use mostly English in the class room, especially with the younger classes primero and segundo grado which is equivalent to 7^th and 8^th grade. I also tried to ask what things they like and what they want to learn about. I had to sorta push them to get ideas but it was mostly like famous people, movies, sports and music that got them excited.     

I'm thinking with cuarto (high school sophomores) and 1st and 2nd bachillerato (juniors and seniors) I will be able to ask more like parts of grammar and specific things they want to understand better. I thought it was funny too that the books they use have things in there that don't really sound correct and somethings that are just plain wrong. It's definitely all based on England English. It's weird that the English spell things differently. I'm kind of glad that I get to represent the US and our language, traditions and life to the students. My favorite part of the day was when in the first class they at first took forever to guess what country I am from Ireland, Holland, England, Spain, Russia and then finally the US. The other classes got it quicker. But second when they named off cities they knew in the states and I said that Philadelphia is my city they immediately said Will Smith! And "principe de bel air"! I had to laugh and say yes that is where I'm from. So for now I feel pretty good about it all. I know come tomorrow I will be nervous again but one step at a time and little by little as Myriam my favorite English teacher likes to say all the time. She makes me feel a lot better about everything. I need to make sure I engage with the other teachers and don't just hide up in my classroom Jose Luis because it would be easy to do just that. Hasta luego!

Settling In …

So I have officially been here for a little over 2 weeks now and its starting to hit me that this isn't a trip or a vacation but that this is my new home. It helps a lot that I have really good friends as roommates, it usually makes home feel not too far away. This week home was definitely feeling far way. I knew this experience would teach me a lot about myself and life it's just that some lessons are hard to learn. At first I doubted myself and what I am doing wondering why I wanted to do something so far away from everyone. But as this bout of homesickness is passing I guess I am really just being reminded of how much my family and friends mean to me. It may be cliché and obvious but distance really does make the heart grow fonder and I am grateful that I have this experience and opportunity J

Which brings me to my job! What am I doing here everyone wants to know and honestly when I got here I barely knew, and to be even more honest I still don't know all the way what exactly I am doing! I started my Master's Classes last Tuesday and I will have class every Tuesday and Thursday evening. So far the classes seem interesting and helpful for how and what to teach in our classes. Basically I am in a program through La Universidad de Alcala which is a university right outside of Madrid. The university has agreements with many of the schools in the Madrid area and supplies the schools with "Auxiliers" or English speaking students like us to assist in the school's English classes. My school and many of the schools that my classmates teach at are in an organization of schools called FERE - Federacion Española De Religiosos De Enseñanza which is an association for the Catholic schools in Madrid. Recently (in the past two years) there has been a movement here in Madrid to develop the schools into Bilingual schools this is called the BEDA program or Bilingual English Development and Assessment. The schools are fairly new with this program so some are beginning to teach numerous English classes and others are already teaching subject matter classes in English. This means that for example science is taught in English instead of Spanish. As Auxiliaries we are supposed to be utilized with this program and assist the teachers in different classes only ever speaking English in front of the students.

So that is what the program is but as for me it seems so far that my school will be giving me a slightly different role. I went to my school last Wednesday and they gave me my schedule. I will be the English Conversation Class teacher with my very own class room teaching grades 7 through 12! I begin tomorrow and I will ultimately teach every student in the secondary school. I have 25 different classes and will have half of each class at a time so I will essentially see every student only once every other week. The goal of my class will be to encourage the students to speak and use English conversationally with confidence. I met the 4 English teachers on Wednesday and they were extremely nice. Although when they realized I was 22 and have not only never taught before but that I didn't even study education in college they pretty much looked at me with these huge eyes that said to me "these kids may eat this blonde hair green eyed little girl alive." Needless to say I was a little overwhelmed at first. However they reassured me over and over again that I would be fine and that they would be helping me every step of the way. They also stressed to me that I would need to be strict at first and make sure the students understand that my class is important and basically get their respect right off the bat. I'm excited to get into the swing of things and learn my role in the school; it should definitely be an interesting first week!

 

http://www.ecmadrid.org/

http://www.ecmadrid.org/Pedagogico/Programas%20y%20Proyectos/Programa%20BEDA.html

Moving In: Step Numero Uno

Monday morning we woke up to our last morning at the Best Western Los Condes and were just a little bit excited to say goodbye to the shoebox of a room. We went to the bank with our fingers crossed and were able to take out the money we needed for our 4 months of rent forward payment. We signed the final contract and moved our suitcases in to our very own apartment! It seems though that having a place to live has only brought us more steps to finally getting accommodated into our new city.

Step 1 Getting the internet: Clearly internet is what we all want the most upon moving in because how do you live without it?? Well step 1 quickly leads us to step 2 which is setting up a Spanish bank account which you need in order to sign a contract for internet. So we got bank accounts at the local Barclays so that we can set up internet, get paid, and pay bills throughout the next 10 months. To make a long story short we will not have internet for at least 2 weeks. At first this was a big rain on our parade but so far in the mean time we have been getting to know our barrio*, trying to cook in our little cocina*, making friends and taking advantage of the free time that we won’t have when work and school start next week.

It’s been over a week since we got here and its starting to hit me that this is going to be my life. Everything we have done so far has been a little discouraging at times and has felt like such a process but overall it’s been the beginning of an adventure. It feels good to know that we have a home and are starting to get to know our surroundings. I am learning to accept that my American tendency of wanting instant gratification is not going to fly here so I’m joining the slower Spanish way of life and enjoying my siestas :)

Pasqual's wicker mueble

I'm jumping on this blogging boat.. well doing cartwheels onto it actually. I'm a little delirious right now because it is Day 4 in Spain and today is the first day that we did not need to wake up early and scope out the city for an apartment. We started our search shortly after we got here and checked into our hotel on Thursday morning. When I say we I mean Erin, Nick, Stephanie and me. We were lucky enough to have Nick's mom help us out as well as Steph's dad. Nick's mom had a few appointments set up with a realtor. The first few places we saw weren't really what we were looking for. Some were too expensive around 1,800 Euros a month while we were looking for something around 1,500. One place we looked at smelled like smoke probably because the landlord was telling us how great the place was with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Other places were dirty or only had 3 rooms. Honestly we were getting pretty discouraged because we didn't find a single place the first day that we could have lived in. The second day did more searching on our own by walking around and getting numbers from "Se Alquila" (for rent) signs in windows. We also had a few print outs from websites so we were calling numbers and setting up appointments on the phone with the landlords ourselves. Which brought us to Pasqual. Pasqual had an awesome apartment it was actually clean and modern inside and in a pretty good location the only problem was that the fourth bedroom was more like a hamster cage without the wheel than it was a live-able bedroom. We were really torn up about what to do because we really liked the place but we would have to figure out an arrangement of switching rooms or paying less rent because of the small small room. Well then little ol' Pasqual called us about an hour later to tell us that his parents had already rented out the apartment. So that fixed that dilemma. We were once again out of any hope of finding a place we really liked. The next place we saw we were pretty serious about getting; it was a little dirty and I don't think I'd be comfortable peeing in that baño. We spent the rest of the afternoon calling people and set up 3 appointments. We got to the first appointment and met Chello and Jose. They were extremely nice and very excited to show us the place. Long story short the apartment was perfect: 4 good sized rooms, very clean, and non-smoking good mannered landlords. Their daughter is actually the owner but she ended up being just as great. We signed the precontrato yesterday and will hopefully be moving in and signing the final contract tomorrow! We can't wait to be in our own place and not cooped up in this little little hotel room quoting youtube. Pictures to come :)