Profesora Zoe

This week I officially became an English teacher (Profesora Zoe)! I teach at the colegio (my internship) and I teach Pepa's 11 year old daughter and 8 year old niece (my program leader's family).

La tutoría de niños

I started tutoring on Monday for the first time. Pepa brought me to her house from the University and I began working with her daughter Clara for an hour. Clara is very shy and doesn't like to speak in English so it's tough because I'm instructed to only speak English with her and when she only speaks to me in Spanish, my brain wants me to answer in Spanish which is not good! I need to be firm and only speak in English. Anyways, despite her understandable timidness, she's delightful. Unfortunately, we don't get to have as much fun and play around in English because she has upcoming English exams at the end of the month that I need to get her ready for. So we spent the hour doing her homework from her workbook (which honestly confused the heck out of me). English workbooks make very little sense to me. But after I figured out the point of the activity, she did very well. We went over how "likes" changes to "like" when the sentence is negative (in third person). For example:

• He likes going swimming. 
• He doesn't like going swimming.

She mastered that quite quickly and then we went over the parts of the body and sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"

Then I went over to Pepa's brother's house to essentially play in English with Candela. Candela is the opposite of Clara and is so eager to learn English. She was so excited to meet me. We read Dr. Seuss and played with dolls. Her mom made us cinnamon rolls and says sometime when I'm over we should all bake together. This thrills me because no one bakes here!

This upcoming week Pepa wants me to sing a song with her son Eduardo (he's six, and not quite ready to start having lessons). The thing is they want me to sing "Whistle" by Flo Rida with them. 1) I can't really sing, let alone rap and 2) That song has about a million sexual innuendoes. So while they don't know that, I do feel a little strange singing it with a six year old boy. But what can you do? I'm not about to explain that...

La enseñanza del inglés

This week I also officially began working at the colegio. I work with all different ages. So far I've worked with a class of 9-10 year olds, several classes with 15-16 year olds, and a class with 17-18 year olds. The little kids have the hardest time paying attention. However, some were interested and came up to me to show me sentences they'd written for me to correct, and they were surprisingly well written for their level and age. We're supposed to keep it a secret that I understand and speak Spanish, especially with the little kids, because if they know they won't try and will speak to me in Spanish. But I already failed in one class because I laughed at a joke that the teacher was saying and some girl yelled in Spanish, "see, she does know Spanish!!" Oops. Busted my cover on the first day. It's so bizarre to me to have to pretend to not know any Spanish. Seems contradictory to the reasons why I'm here. But I understand why I have to, it's just so hard for my brain to not want to spit something back out in Spanish when I'm listening to it and being asked things in Spanish. It takes serious brain effort to be making the switch all the time and to only speak in English. You would think it wouldn't be that hard, but it is.

The older kids are great. They ask all sorts of questions: Have I ever seen a famous person walking down the street in California? What do I think of our president? What time to I eat dinner? Do I like Justin Beiber? Do I speak Spanish? (haha) How old am I? Do I like Spain or the U.S. more? What do Americans think of Spaniards? etc. etc. etc. Next week I'm giving a presentation on Sacramento and why it's so great...beats me ;) I like Spain more than Sacramento, I can tell you that. But I suppose that's a little biased. Last week was mostly just having the students get to know me and I observed some oral exams (took me back to high school Spanish presentations, I loved it). We'll see what I actually start teaching this week.

Los acentos

The accents of adults who speak English here crack me up. Spaniards have a pretty thick Spanish accent that hinders when they speak English. But on top of that, they've all learned British English so they have this adorable British/Spanish accent when they speak English. It kills me, it's so funny. I can only imagine what my Spanish accent sounds like to them...or even my strange American English.

Los festivales de Octubre

Parade!

Flamenco!

This last week we had two holidays: the Valencian Community Day and Hispanic Day (roughly translated to English). Tuesday was the Valencian Community Day so I went and watched the parade in town since there was no school. And Friday was Hispanic Day, so Kiersten's host family decided to go up the the Guadelest Castle (about an hour north and and east of Alicante) and invited me to come with them! The castle is very small and located in a very little town. But it was adorable. We had lunch which was essentially breakfast at 2 p.m. (two fried eggs on toast, bacon, and french fries). Even though it was for lunch, Kiersten and I were so happy to have an "American Breakfast." We saw some incredible views and walked around to look at all the little shops. It was a really nice day. It made me miss going on day trips with my own family in the States.

More Dancing :)

View from atop the castle!

Los viajes del futuro!

I have so many trips coming up this semester! Next weekend I'm going to Granada, Spain with my program for two days. I'm traveling every weekend in November: the first weekend I'm going to Morocco, the second weekend my Grandma is coming and taking me to Barcelona, the third weekend my Grandma, Kiersten and I are going to go somewhere else in Spain (TBA), and the last weekend I'm going to Paris with Kiersten and a couple other girls from my program (we just booked this last night, I'm so excited!!!!). In December I'm going to Venice, Italy with Kiersten and her family (from the States) who have family in Italy. And then I'm coming home for Christmas break! I'm so excited for all of it. And I hope next semester I can do even more traveling (Amsterdam, London, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece are high on my list right now!).