(You can call me ‘Señorita’)
Today was my first official day as a Spanish teacher at Fountain International School. I had mix emotions about the whole thing. Mostly, I just wanted to teach already because I was getting immensely bored in the faculty room. (We were supposed to be at school by 730. My classes start at 950 & 10 something on Wednesdays.)
For my first day, I explained the requirements to the kiddos and started with our first lesson: getting to know you. Basically, I taught them how to ask for someones name, age, nationality, etc, as well as how to respond to these questions. It was as easy as I thought it would be because firstly, there weren’t a lot of Filipinos in my classes, hence, they don’t know the borrowed Spanish words, and secondly they didn’t try hard enough to get the lesson. They kept asking “Señorita, what does that mean in English?” “Señorita, what does ‘hablo’ mean?” “Señorita, what does ‘me llamo’ mean?” Most of them couldn’t understand the context clues which was a bit frustrating. I taught the lesson as simple as possible, but hey, it’s just the first day. It will get better…fingers crossed!
The first class I had to teach was the 9th grade. There were only 5 boys who wanted to take up Spanish from their grade. I was relieved that I only had a few students for that class. They seemed enthusiastic enough, and two of them already took up Spanish before in the States so the first meeting kind of went by smoothly. Their reason for taking up Spanish instead of Mandarin or French was that Mandarin was too hard and all the noisy girls all wanted to take French. haha.
My next class was with the 8th grade. 16 students from their grade chose Spanish. They were a lot more difficult to handle. They wouldn’t listen, they kept of chatting with each other, and when I would ask them to recite, they couldn’t answer because they didn’t know what to say because, guess what, they weren’t listening. In that class, I have one Japanese girl who doesn’t speak English (Lord, help my soul) and has the softest voice ever (imagine the asian from Pitch Perfect – exactly like that! haha) There were a few, however, who were smart enough to answer my questions. I might just rely on them to keep me sane.
My third class was with the 7th grade. They are so cute and little!!!! I have 10 students from their class. All of them are good students so far except for 2 boys. Both of them kept asking the English translations of the questions and responses. One of the was just raising his hand every 2 seconds, and the other was acting like that “I’m too cool for school-don’t correct me if I’m wrong” attitude because everytime I corrected the words he said he would get more annoyed each time aaaand he would roll his eyes one me! UGH the nerve.
My last class was with the 10th grade. Like the 8th grade, they were talkative (Maybe because they’re all excited about taking up another language?) I have 12 students from that class. As expected, they understood the lesson more easily than the other three grades. However, there are two Koreans in that class who kept talking in Korean soooooo I was kind of lost sometimes, but they were really nice!
It was just the first day, and I’m sure that things will get better and easier for them. I mean, I’m sure I was exactly like that when I was in my Spanish 1 and French 1 classes in Uni. So, fingers crossed for a better tomorrow! I’m teaching them the alphabets & magic (polite) words tomorrow! And to ward of boredom, maybe I should bring a book or my laptop so I can watch movies. lol Wish me luck!
Til the next entry,
xoxo
Samantha Jean
I am now officially teaching Spanish at Fountain International School! weeeeee The academic director who interviewed me was Turkish, and really nice. Although, it was difficult understanding what he was saying because of his accent. He told me to go back on Thursday to sign contracts, and the parent’s orientation is also going to be on that day. On Friday, it’s the orientation for the students. That’s when they get to choose which language they want (either French, Spanish, Mandarin or Turkish). I was really excited about this whole thing…up until about 6pm today.
(I love Miranda Kerr so much! lol) I’m also exercising more often than usual so that’s good! I’d have to admit that I lost the flow for like a week or so, but now I’m getting it back!
