Bilingualism

There are professors here in Spain who do not understand the importance of bilingual education and bilingualism. I cannot see how they can be so close-minded and unwilling to make changes. Looking at data (granted this is from the US, but I am sure that it would apply worldwide) by fourth grade if students are in a bilingual program they are outscoring their non-bilingual peers by many points on state mandated testing. We had one professor tell a bilingual professor that what she is teaching is a "waste of time" and "not worth it" for the students. I was completely outraged to hear this for many reasons:

First- I would not have taken a year out of my life to come and expose your school to English if you didn't want me there. 

Second- First grade bilingual science is HARD! This is the students first exposure to learning an entire class in a foreign language, so yes they probably are going to act up and be misbehaved. They don't understand what is going on, but once they do, they soak it up like sponges and retain it! 

Third- Looking back to a few weeks ago when the director came to shadow my class, I can finally see that there are haters out there in the world of bilingual education. The bilingual program in Andalucia is extremely new, it has only been around for 2 years. So yes, there are still some kinks to work out, but the students that are getting exposure to English at such a young age will know so much more when they leave the school than the current sixth grade students do. 

I am very frustrated that people cannot see that exposure to another language at a young age is an amazing opportunity. As the world continues to get smaller with new technology every day, students will need to be able to communicate with people all around the world. Also, learning a new language also means learning a new culture. Students who are exposed to cultures/backgrounds of people who are different from them are much more likely to be globally minded, creative, independent thinkers for our future. It also helps to break stereotypes that are created. Stereotypes are created because people are not open to things that are different from them, so students who are exposed to different cultures are much less likely to hold stereotypes. 

Anyway, I don't want to continue ranting. I just finished applying for over 23 bilingual districts in the United States for next year. So, I know that I will be empowering young minds and exposing them to cultural opportunities that they may have never had in a typical school environment. I cannot wait to start hearing back from some districts :)

A Normal Week

This week was the first in awhile where I had to work 4 days and go to all of my classes. It was actually nice to return to my routine because I had been feeling stressed out after travelling a lot and not sleeping/eating normally. So, it was great to return to normal.

In school this week, we celebrated International Woman's Day. The way my school chose to celebrate was by having each professor create a stand about a different woman singer. It kind of reminded me of the science fair because all around the school, there were little tables with instruments, pictures and music playing. There was also information about each of the singers, so I learned a lot about random Spanish women that I didn't know before. In my classes, the teachers were teaching songs by the artist they had chosen. Bea chose Adele, so in my three classes with her, we were working with the song Someone Like You.  In Milagros's class, we worked on the song Vindaloo by Ana Laan. Ana Laan is a Spaniard who was born to a Swedish mother and Spanish father. So, she speaks Swedish, Spanish and English. All of her songs are a mixture of the three languages, so it was really fun to listen to the songs. The students loved listening and raising their hands when she switched from Spanish to English- a great listening practice.

In art this week, we were working on landscapes. Normally I only teach art to the bilingual group, but for some reason, the classes didn't switch. Teresa (the teacher I work with for 2nd grade bilingual) wasn't there that day, so I didn't have any support in Spanish. I was kind of nervous that the students wouldn't understand, but everything turned out great. The students who are in Teresa's class and also in the bilingual class were a great help and explained things to their non-bilingual peers if they got confused. Their projects turned out great and the class was relatively calm and quiet the whole time. It was very nice to be in a class where everyone was listening and following directions.

Outside of school, I did a few exciting things this week. On Tuesday, I was in a cooking class with Joanna. We learned how to make Pisto Manchego which is a vegetable medley in a tomato sauce. We also learned how to make Spinach and Garbanzos in a creamy veggie sauce. The food was very good, but the class wasn't over until almost 11:30. If we sign up again, we would definitely choose to go on the weekend or a Thursday night. On Friday, I spent my entire day sitting outside by the river in the sun with a picnic and good friends. Saturday, I went to the First International Beer Festival that is being held here in Sevilla. Saturday night I went to my friend Hannah's house for crepes and wine- which was great besides having to evacuate the building for a fire on the fifth floor in the middle of our dinner. Today, I volunteered at a 10k race. I handed out food and drinks at the end of the race to the runners. I really liked it, but next time I would prefer to get up later than 6:45 am to go volunteer.

Shake, Shake, Shake Your Tail

Last weekend was a long weekend or "puente" as they call it here in Spain. I decided to take a solo trip to Brussels and Amsterdam. I was busy the whole time and didn't really get lonely until the last day/night there. I think my favorite part of my trip was the day trip I took to Amsterdam. I got to visit the Anne Frank House, see Dam square/monument, wander the Jordaan neighborhood, and shop a bit. The weather was perfect and Amsterdam was such a cute city. I hope that in the future I can make another trip there for a longer period of time.
In Brussels, I got to do all of the things I wanted to do, which is the nice part about travelling alone. A lot of what I did was eat. I had most of the typical Belgian food including waffles, chocolate, mussels, fries, and kebabs. Kebabs are pretty much the same thing as a gyro. My favorite attraction was the chocolate museum. I got to learn a little bit about the history of chocolate, then see a demonstration on how pralines are made. My favorite part was the free samples :)

I also got to see all of the major attractions. I really liked the Magritte Museum, but I wish there would have been more of his artwork and less letters that were written to him in French or Dutch that I couldn't read. I saw the cathedral, Grand Palace, Palace of Justice and of course the Atomium. I think the Atomium is the coolest attraction that I have ever visited. It was built for the 1958 World Expo in Brussels. It is an iron atom, blown up 165 billion times. People can walk around inside of it and have a beautiful panoramic view from the top. It was very futuristic and I really enjoyed visiting.

Since we had the break last weekend, school was only 2 days this week for me. Wednesday I went in and taught sixth grade the different endings for regular verbs in the simple past tense. They had to fill out a chart deciding if the word ended in /d/ /Id/ or /t/. It really helped some of them because they have the tendency to say all of the words with an /Id/ ending sound. Now they can look back and the chart to help them better their pronunciation. 

Thursday was very exciting. I didn't actually have to go to school because we were going on a field trip to see a play in English with the 1st and 2nd graders. The play was in Los Remedios (my neighborhood), so I got to sleep in and just meet them at the place where it was. The play was about a dog, cat, donkey and rooster who form a band because their owner doesn't want them anymore. The biggest issue we had was that the play was in English, but Spaniards were acting and they had really bad accents. It was very hard to understand the play and many of the students left confused. Also, they seated us on the top balcony level, which normally would have been fine, but we booked the play last May. We have a student who is in a wheelchair and they would not let him sit downstairs, so one of the teachers had to carry him up the stairs so he could sit with us. I can even begin to imagine how he felt. It was really crappy of the company to book the only school with a student with a physical disability on the top floor. Also, none of the students could really see from the top floor because they were too little to see over the seats in front of them. I was nervous that one of them was going to fall over the balcony because of how they were jumping up out of their seats. The kids really liked the songs in the play though and the one "Shake Your Tail" has been stuck in my head all weekend...