My fellow teaching assistant and I both agree that the one class we feel completely useless in is gym class. Since our school is bilingual, we also have the pleasure of assisting in physical education class since it is taught in english. However, since it is the first year our school has auxiliares and our school just turned bilingual within the past two years, neither of us really know what is expected of us in this class. The teacher for this class also happens to be the principal of the school (it is very common for principals here to also teach classes). He is a very serious person, probably the most serious spaniard I have ever met. He is also kind of a timid person so I think he feels bad asking us to do more in class....which is hard since we literally don't do anything. Usually we spend the class watching the students do their exercises/games.
During prep with the principal earlier this school year I specifically asked him what more I could do so that I was utilized in that class. He said I could lead some stretches in the beginning of class. Unfortunately, this only lasted for about two weeks and he had soon taken over again in doing everything. The most unfortunate part about physical education is that I have it 3 of the 4 days I work during the week. It is all with the same grade level but three different groups. So essentially Monday-Wednesday I watch each group do the SAME things in class while I simply stand around watching...and this either takes place in the frigid cold gymnasium or outside.
In addition, the kids we have gym class with are all around 12 years old. Since I work with the kids in the Program and not the Section (the program are the normal students and the section is the students in the "advanced" classes) my students happen to have a pretty low level of english and therefore don't understand a whole lot that goes on in Physical Education. It certainly doesn't help that the principal who teaches this class has about the worst english pronunciation/vocabulary of any of the teachers in the English Department. He often gives up speaking in english to the kids and starts speaking spanish because they are completely lost and don't understand a thing.
We have found at this point that the only thing we really can do is help the principal use different expressions or words in class. There happens to be very little physical education info for ESL so often I will just take notes during his class of errors he makes in speech or other expressions that are more commonly used and give it to him at the end of class. The good thing is that he seems to be eager to improve on his english and I actively hear him in classes the following week using the words/expressions that I wrote down for him to learn. So I guess this is the only positive thing. Another thing we both do with him during prep is help translate physical education texts from spanish to english. For example, right now we are currently working on soccer and gymnastics so he has many texts with lists of exercises and games but they are all in spanish so we help to translate those for him.
During a recent orientation for Auxiliares in Madrid the head of the program asked us how physical education classes were going. Luckily, we found out that we were NOT in the minority in feeling like we were completely useless in this class. Everyone seemed to feel the same way in that they didn't know what to do to help or to be better utilized. The head of the program suggested we could participate with the students in our classes in these exercises and games....though this is easier said than done since my fellow auxiliar and I both lack skills in team sports. It seems that both of hated gym class as kids because we weren't good at these competitive sports or anything that involved balls flying at our faces.
Who knows, I suppose it might get better as the year progresses. And if anything, we are the guinea pigs for future auxiliares in our school. The teachers will learn from us and how to better utilize future auxiliares through their experiences with us.
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