Do you (e)speak (e)Spanish?

The second and third days of school have been better than the first. Today was my first day in a sixth grade classroom and I absolutely loved it. They are at a much higher level of English than all of the other students that I teach, so I will be able to do a lot more with them. I am already looking forward to working with them next week. I think that I am going to play a song and have them fill in the lyrics of the song to learn about comparative adjectives. Now I just have to find the song.

My favorite part of teaching today is that the students had so many questions for me. They were asking me if I lived near any celebrities, so I told them that Michael Jordan's (old) house is right down the street from mine. Then they started asking me about other celebrities such as Justin Beiber, Selena Gomez, iCarly, and Michael Jackson. About half of their questions I couldn't answer because I simply didn't know the answers. I did make one mistake in both my 6th grade classes today though, the students figured out that I speak Spanish (which they aren't supposed to know...). In the first, I was listening to their questions and one girl asked "When is your birthday?" and I wrote it on the board as 21 de enero. I realized what I had done right away, so I erased it with my hand. I was not quick enough and they saw that I wrote in Spanish. In the other class one of the girls asked "Do you have a novio?" and I responded that I didn't have a boyfriend. So, I had to explain to both classes that I do speak Spanish, but when I am in class with them, I don't speak/understand Spanish at all. They agreed to try their hardest in English because I will feign stupidity when they try to talk to me in Spanish.

During the break time today, I was working on filling out a form in the break room. A bunch of the teachers were cutting out tiny slips of paper that said "Dear Parents, We regret to inform you that a case of piojos has been discovered in the school." I could translate all of the other words except piojos, so I asked one of the teachers what it was. She said "I don't know how you say in English, but bugs in your hair." So, today I learned the word for lice. I am really hoping that I don't get it because I am pretty sure that it is in the first grade classrooms that I work in 4 times a week. :(

One more day this week!