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!