First Week Reflections

The highlight of my week happened this afternoon, when I was walking down the hallway right after recess. The students love to say hi to me when they see me in the hall, but they always say "Hola." And I´ll respond "Hello" always, but I feel like a broken record: I don´t speak Spanish, kids, you have to speak English with me! (I mean, not really, but that´s what I get paid for.) Then today, a group of 3 or 4 girls from one of my elementary school classes not only said hi to me in English ("Hello! How are you?" in an adorable little Spanish accent) but also pinned me against a wall and gave me a huge hug. I have never felt so appreciated in my whole life :)


The week´s gone really well. It´s been a little overwhelming, since I work with different classes every day (meeting with each class only once every week) so every day I´m with new students, new teachers, and different age groups. The teachers don´t always know what periods we´re going to be there either so they don´t always know what to do with us when we show up. And I don´t know what I'm doing about 75% of the time. I have no idea how to teach pre-schoolers anything! But this is Spain, so everything is kind of "we´ll figure it out as we go along". I'm already feeling much more comfortable after 4 days, so I'm sure by October or November I'll have everything more or less figured out!

One of the best lessons I´ve done so far this week was "fishing" today with the preschoolers. I had a fishing pole with a magnet on the end, and the teacher had made a bunch of fish with different colors, numbers, and shapes on them. Each had a paper clip at the mouth so it would stick to the magnet. I would call the kids to the center of the pond, one at a time, to catch a fish. Then they had to tell me what color/shape/number was on their fish. The teacher put me on the spot and asked me to call up the students by name! What a memory test, considering I´d only met the kids about 10 minutes ago and heard their names once! I needed a refresher, but I got through it (and felt awful for ignoring the few kids whose names I just couldn´t remember. Oh well, there were more kids than fish anyways!) I was okay with the Spanish names (David, Pablo, Adriana, Lucía) but the Basque ones (Ainhoa, Irati, Aitana, Asier, Unai) are a mouthful!

The best part of the whole job? The other teachers! I'm amazed by how welcoming they've all been. During recess every day, the teacher's room is packed (and feels even smaller cause Spaniards are loud), everyone wants to practice their English with us, wants to hear about me and the US, where I'm living now, how I like Tudela, or wants help translating things for their classrooms (Poll: Would you say "tuck in your chair" or "push in your chair"? My Canadian roommate swears its "tuck in" but I've always said "push in."). It´s a cacophony of English and Spanish (and usually I´m having 2 conversations at a time, one in each language) but it´s been awesome getting to know everyone, and finally starting to be able to put some names and faces together! A few of the teachers invited us out for drinks after school today and I finally got to speak Spanish with them (in the school, we´re supposed to speak English with the English teachers, so that they can practice and improve). It´s weird to be in Spain and speaking English all day, so it was nice to finally use Spanish!

Happy Friday everyone!