The last few weeks since winter break ended have been pretty uneventful. But seeing as I haven't posted anything new for a while I figured I should at least update those of you back home on what has been going on with me.
Every day at Gomez Moreno is starting to feel more and more comfortable. I am getting to know more of the students names, even if I have eight different classes with an average of 20 kids per class. The teachers seem surprised and pleased when I am able to call on a child by their name rather than pointing and saying "you." This also makes me feel like I am getting to know them better in general and getting used to their different personalities and learning styles.
There is one group of students, however, that never fails to create the most stressful classes of the entire week- and that group is 1° C ESO (first level of obligatory secondary education, group C). This is a group of 27 twelve-year-olds. They are literally the rowdiest group of children I have ever experienced. Every time I enter the class I look around the room and it's complete CHAOS. There will be a few girls singing and clapping, boys running around, other boys fighting, some kids writing on the chalkboard, some throwing paper, some running in and out of the classroom, some out in the hallways kissing their boyfriends (YES, these are 12-13 year olds), some screaming and then about two or three in their desks that are looking around the room, just like me, in wonder and confusion. It then takes about 5-10 minutes to settle these kids down and that is NEVER a guarantee that they will stay quiet during the rest of the duration of the class. It is impossible to control these kids, the only teacher who seems to be able to control them happens to be the principal and I think it's only because the kids are afraid of him.
Aside from this class though I have had a lot of random enjoyable and funny moments so far. For example, in one of my 2° ESO classes the students could absolutely NOT pronounce the word "comfortable" no matter how many times I repeated it or how slowly. Finally I just told them that "comfy" would work and they seemed so relieved and so happy to have learned a new word.
Another funny thing happened the other day in Physical Education class, again with the 1° ESO kids. The teacher, who happens to have about the worst English of any of the teachers in the English Department, was writing down vocabulary words on the board. All the words related to the human body. He had written the word "Heap" on the board. I would pronounce the word, the kids would repeat after me and then we would move onto the next word. He meant to write "Hip" but wrote "Heap" because that is how "Hip" would phonetically be pronounced in Spanish. I had to correct him in front of the class because I didn't want the kids thinking that "heap" and "hip" were the same thing. He was pretty embarrassed and I even had to show him my spanish/english dictionary to prove to him that I was correct.
Since the first day I started helping this teacher in class I noticed that when he calls the attendance roll he told the kids to respond "yes, me." For the longest time I never understood what the kids were saying when he called the roll because with their accents it sounded like "jess me." Now that it's been one entire term into the school year and we've started the second, I don't know if I should tell him that simply having them say "here" or "yes" would be more correct. Regardless, it never fails to put a bit of a smile on my face when I hear the kids respond this way when he calls their names.
Tomorrow, two groups of the 12-year-olds are attending a theater performance called "Nobody's Perfect." It is a silly play about high school kids. For the past week and a half we have been working on exercises and worksheets related to the play so that they will actually understand what is going on when they actually see it live and in English. I am excited to go on my first "excursion" with them and it will last the whole school day.
This coming weekend I am going to the beach with some of my friends! It will be my first full weekend away from Madrid so I am very excited. It is about a 4-5 hour drive from Madrid to a place a little further south of Valencia but not as far as Alicante. I forget the name of the city/village. I am going with 6 or 7 of my friends. It should be a relaxing and fun weekend.
Now, only 16 more days until my Brandon comes to visit me!!! I'm greatly looking forward to him coming as he is also looking forward to seeing Spain for the first time. I am sure it will be a whole new world to him. But it will be a lot of fun to show him around and give him a better insight to MY world here in Spain.
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