First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! Today marks the beginning of our free time here in Costa Rica and I am very excited about the American meal we´ll be having tonight with some of our friends here in Nicoya!
Monday of this week started out with English Day at San Ambrosio. It is a day which highlights the English program and gives students the opportunity to present their English skills to their classmates and teachers. At the beginning of the assembly, there was an opening speech explaining the benefits of students at San Ambrosio learning English. After that they presented the Guanacaste and Costa Rican Flags and sang the anthems for Guanacaste and Costa Rica. Each grade level then had the opportunity to present a song, poem or scripted play to the school. This assembly for the school was great overall, and gave evidence for the work that students put into it.
My preschool group sang a song called ¨At The Zoo¨ which talks about different animals they see at the zoo and the types of things those animals do. For example, seals swim and monkeys swing. The kindergarteners sang a song called ¨On This Farm¨ about different animals and things you see on a farm, like a field and a horse. Both of these songs are pretty basic, but it helps students to build up English vocabulary that is easier for them to remember since it is in the form of a song.
First grade read a poem about a duck. The class was divided into 4 groups and each group had a line to read. They were all able to line up and read their part, but once the first row read theirs, they just turned around to look at the rest of the rows instead of moving to the back so their classmates could be seen when they read. Not exactly ideal, but its not always going to be when you´re working with kids! Second grade read a poem called ¨Little Frog¨. We divided this group similarly, with each group reading a different line in the poem. This class had forgotten which lines they were supposed to read though, so everyone read the whole poem all together.
Opening speech that Kayla and I put together.
Pre-K singing ¨At The Zoo¨
Kinders singing ¨On This Farm¨
2nd Grade reading ¨Little Frog¨
Yesterday was actually our last day with the students at San Ambrosio. I only went to one class period, with my first graders, where we did a final journal entry for them to talk about vacation. After the first class period the whole school walked over to the Catholic church for mass. After mass everyone went back to the school and there were groups of students who did dances and skits for the teachers, the madres, and their peers. I think I speak for all three of us here when I say that it was distasteful and that there isn´t really any pictures I would feel comfortable to post from it. The dancing was done by 4th & 6th grade girls along with a group that had come from Santa Cruz. It was something you would usually see out in a club and it was very inappropriate for their age and given the setting... I mean, we´d just come from mass! Anyway, this was our last week with our students at San Ambrosio, and tomorrow Kayla, Jerry and I are leaving in the morning to go to Ostional since the last day at school is just a big party for all of the kids. And today is Thanksgiving, so of course we´re having a Thanksgiving Dinner over at Karla´s with as much American food as we can eat!
Overall I have enjoyed the cultural experience and working with the students at San Ambrosio. One of the most important things I think I will take away from this is the importance of classroom management. We talk about it in our classes at App, but aren´t necessarily showed how to implement it. Some people may get good experience wtih it in one of the internships we have, depending on their cooperating teacher. I knew that it was important before ever coming to Costa Rica, but my appreciation for it has definitely sky-rocketed.
It is absolutely imperative for teachers to set the standard on the very first day of school and post the (short) list of rules in their room as a visible reminder all year long. It is just as important to be consistent in disciplining students for their behavior or they won´t take the rules or you seriously. Then the rest of the year will be one giant headache. Students need to realize that there are consequences for their behavior, which can be rewards or punishments, and they will receive what is appropriate and necessary in order for the class to go smoothly.
We came at the end of their school year, so it is near impossible to implement new rules and have them adhere to them when you only see a class for one period a day. I dont feel as though our being here has had that much of an impact on the students´ behavior in class or on their respect for their (English) teachers or each other, but I can only hope that it will improve in the future. The kids here are happy, sweet and fun to be around, but they have some room to improve in the classroom.