First week in the schools!!!
I would say a success!!! I was very nervous on Sunday night preparing for school on Monday and didn't get the best sleep but Monday morning at 530am rolled around rather quickly and my nerves were pumping! We got the the school and upon arrival the reality of how big the language barriers were going to effect me set in. The principal at my school cannot speak any English so that is a challenge in itself. We observed a few classes and then had our 30 min break. we brought a volleyball and the some students got involved in playing keep up. I had English class in the afternoon and the teacher asked us to lead the class, shockingly I wasn't even nervous at all, even though I had 40 high school Spanish students staring at me! I helped with their sentence structure and pronunciation and that hour and a half flew by. I came home after what seemed like a very long day, and part of me was frustrated. Parts of the day went a lot better than I anticipated but other parts were incredibly frustrating, but I took everything and knew I would learn from it. I took the night to relax and reflect on the day!
Tuesday was a better day, again just some observing and trying to help the students as much as I could and then in English I lead the class again reading a small paragraph and picking out students for potential mentors and also some that need a bit of extra help!
Wednesday was a good break out day for the students, at the end of class they came up to me and wanted to ask me a bunch of questions, I felt really good that this happened because they were very shy the first couple of days! After the first 2 classes my teaching partner and I went to a soccer competition at a local park. We rode the bus for the first time, which is free (you just leave the bus driver a tip at the front) and very packed! It was fun to watch some students play soccer, especially to see the girls getting out there and playing. And then I joined in a recreational game with some students and one teacher! We cabbed back to our hotel and just had another relaxing evening!
Thursday was a very eventful day! English was in the morning so the class was broken into small groups and it was a lot better to work in smaller groups helping the students review for an upcoming quiz. Then we had gym and since the area in the school is too small to do anything we walked to a park about 15 minutes away, we played some handball with the students and then some volleyball. Then we walked back for lunch where we all scarfed down a lunch and then it was gym again! So we walked back to the park and played volleyball, freeze tag and handball. I love seeing these kids being so active because they have such limited gym time and from what I observed they aren't that active in their usual gym classes. We walked back and then I went to observe the Geography class, which turned into Sara and I teaching a class on Canadian Geo...they seemed to like it and the teacher said she would like us to do more things on Canada with them in the next couple weeks we are here! I got a little too much sun this day but after drinking lots of water and sleep I was feeling much better!
anndd today... the greatest day yet, a bit hard but very rewarding! We had Gym, where we played dodgeball which was tons of fun and then had English, where we did another small group set up and helped the kids with their pronunciation! Then we had a 2 class spare so the 4 of us that were at this school today just spoke with the English teacher and she had a lot of questions about universities in Canada along with the country itself. It was really nice to be able to talk to the teacher and bond with her! At break we played more volleyball and the kids didn't want to go back to class they were having so much fun! After break the teachers all had a staff meeting for all four of us teach one class so it was a bit nerve racking but it went great! The last period we tried to teach the kids the boot scoot n' boogie and it went over decently, some kids caught on, other didn't but they all had a good time! We got off at noon and came back to have some relaxing time on the rooftop!!
Tonight we are going out for dinner as a group which should be a lot of fun!!
Tomorrow we are heading to Otavalo which is 2 hours away and full of markets, I can't wait!!
I can't believe a week has gone by already, I am still livin' up every moment and lovin' Quito!!
Skype and Facebook have been saviors for keeping in contact with loved ones!! I miss you all!!
Adios asta pronto!!
:)
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