How am I going to affect my students?

Going to CPI has been a wonderful experience here. I have really enjoyed the type of learning that they provide for the students and not only that but also the amazing teachers that they have. Our first week in Herdia we had a teacher named Henry. I have spoken about Henry before but his nonstop comedy and also his style of teaching was amazing. Although I’m aware every teacher is not going to be a comedian keeping the mood lighter I think is better. The first two hours of class was somewhat serious and we took care of things like book work, but then the last two hours of class we did games like Jenga and word play. These games were always related back to our Spanish. The teacher we have in Monteverde also has the same teaching technique and we play the Spanish version of memory or other things the last two hours of class.

I really think this is so important to integrate fun activities into our lessons even though I do not believe the entire lesson should be about how “fun” we can make our lessons. As teachers we are not there to be friends with our students, however; if we can connect with them in a special way through humor and games I believe it makes them much more motivated to learn on a regular basis. Students are in class for up to six hours daily and then come home to be drilled by more homework, which is also increasing each year. For me I want to make my class a place where my students can come and feel as comfortable as possible. I have very at home at CPI and never degraded when I did not pronounce something correctly. This is important because having ELL students the frustration levels are going to rise even higher than with regular students. As Dr. Powell has states, new standards are being put out for North Carolina schools, so as teachers this raises the standards; we have more to teach our ELL students. Coming into a new country is already a culture shock, facing a new territory and now ELL students have to learn a whole new language. This trip has been such an eye opener for me and realizing how students may feel trying to listen to a lesson in English. After listening to my teacher speak in Spanish for about an hour I get extremely tired. The teachers are extremely good about having everyone participate and also using hand gestures. Hand gestures are an excellent way to explain a theme or a meaning when a student looks confused. I feel like I have learned a lot more Spanish just being around my family every night, just because I am forced to understand the conversation. I have really enjoyed staying with my family in Monteverde. My dad speaks differently than my mom and sometimes it’s a little harder to understand. He speaks very quickly and sometimes I look to my mom to get her to translate. My mother speaks very slowly and also uses a lot of imagery to compare and explain thing to me. She loves to explain Spanish terms to me and in exchange I normally tell her the English meaning for things which she also enjoys. So how do I feel like I’m going to affect my student? I feel like imagery, context clues, speaking slowly all have to do with making sure my students are on task and engaged in the lesson.