This week I had the opportunity to teach with Kirbi and Ashley who are in charge of the younger grades. Having the opportunity to co-teach with them was an amazing experience, and I really was able to see the differernces in levels and knowledge depending on grade.
This week I also learned a lot about the educational system here in Costa Rica. My cooperating teacher here is named Elias. Elias has been teaching English since he was 18 and is now 24 years old. His English is the best of all the English professors at San Ambrosio, although all of the English teachers are well educated in English. I had the opprorunity to discuss with him how their training in the universtiy was and how the primary and secondary schools functioned there.
First we spoke about the education the English teachers all receive. Much like a lateral entry teacher in the states these teachers are English majors. They receive little to no instruction on teaching pedagogy while in school. This puts it on the teachers to research and study methods and strategies in the classroom.
Their primary and secondary schools are different from ours in many respects. The biggest difference I noticed was how they do testing. Test days are not determined by the teacher. Test days are determined by the school. The school will assign a specific day that all studenst in the entire school will test. That means that on one specific day the whole school may be testing in mathmatics. The next day the whole school may test in English. This method of testing does not allow for teachers to have a say in when the tests are. That means that a teacher may only be partially through a unit and they may have a test. Or the unit may have been over for a week and they still have not been tested. This method is hard on students who already struggle with testing.
This week was eye opening to education in Costa Rica.
