"Viva Alex"

I just had the most touching surprise party ever. I´ve never had a surprise party before, but I think if I had, this would have topped it. Mari Carmen told me to come a little late to class today because the 5th graders were preparing something special for me. I had planned to go to the supermarket in the morning anyway to buy them some candy for the last class so I showed up around 9:20am. I knocked on the door and then slowly opened it to see if they were ready for me. The entire entrance way to the classroom was covered in all different colored balloons. They all screamed, "surprise!" when I walked in. On the white board they had written, "we will miss you" and "viva alex" and ""we love you." They read me a poem in English that they wrote together. Although it does not translate the same into English, it's so cute and I want to frame it in my room at home.

After, the girls, who were the ones in charge of this whole surprise, told me there were 4 presents hidden all around the room and they would give me clues to help find it. The first present was, "under a bag." I discovered it all wrapped up in smiley face wrapping paper- a pair of sungalsses! The next present was, "in an umbrella." Low and behold a bracelet with matching earrings and a ring!! Soo cute! The 3rd present was "on the shelf"- a pink scarf. The 4th present was "next to the computer"- a WATCH! I was so touched and was not expecting anything like this. It was so over the top! They said they wanted to give me some "recuerdos," to make sure I wouldn't forget them.

After my treasure hunt, I said some words about how I will miss them and that I hope they will continue to study English and they can email me with any questions (that might have been a mistake.) I wrote my email address on the board and they all copied it onto their arms. We had a short English lesson and then I spent the next 20minutes after our class writing a note and signing my name on a balloon for them (for each student), but also on to paper, beause they said the balloon wouldn´t last forever. At the end they gave me some of the pin wheels they had made for Martin Luther King Jr. Day that say, "USA," "peace," and "protest" on them. The whole thing was such a sweet, touching and thoughtful thing to do and I will never forget it, or them.
Above: The girls reading me the poem they wrote about me
Below: The poem

Spelling Bee

I have started doing a weekly spelling bee in 3rd grade English. It all began when I realized that even though they have English and Science class twice a week and they have learned things like the water cycle and plant reproduction in English, they STILL can´t pronunce the alphabet prefectly . "E," "i," "a," "j," "h," and "y" are the big problems so once a week we have the spelling bee to practice vocabulary they have learned from the unit and to practice the alphabet. The head teacher Maria Carmen calls two names of the students and they come to the front where I am standing and I give them a word to spell. If the first student makes a mistake he/she steps back and the other student has a chance to spell it correctly. If the student spells it correctly I write their name on the blackboard. The winners play each other until we have a 1st place winner. He/she gets a big sticker and the runners up get smaller stickers. They get so excited and nervous for the spelling bee. When it gets down to the finals and a students spells the word correctly they all clap and cheer, it really is precious. Maria Carmen told me that when I´m not in class they all ask where I am and if we can have the "concurso."

Fifty Nifty United States

Today I was teaching transportation in 3rd grade Science: train, bus, metro, airplane, helicoptor, truck, car etc and how to talk about getting to different places, for example, "How do you go to Madrid?" " I go by bus" and also, "Can you go to Madrid by boat?" "No, I can´t." I used many cities in Spain and started to use different cities in the US until I realized that they did not know that California was a state and that Los Angeles was a city. So I ran downstairs and printed out the song I learned in middle school to memorize all the states. They loved it so much we assigned them each a state in the US and they have to research it- its capital, major cities, climate, main attractions etc. During each class students will present on their states and we will practice the song. This will be an ongoing project until I leave in 3 weeks. So proud they are learning US geography!

SONG:

Fifty Nifty United States from thirteen original
colonies;
Fifty Nifty stars on the flag that billows so
beautifully in the breeze.
Each individual state contributes a quality that is
great.
Each individual state deserves a bow, We salute
them now.

Fifty Nifty United States from thirteen original
colonies,
Shout 'em, scout 'em, Tell all about 'em,
One by one,til we've given a name to every state in
the USA ....
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California,
Colorado, Connecticut
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois,
Indiana
Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan.
Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana,
Nebraska, Nevada,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New
York,
North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
South Carolina,
South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,
Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia,
Wisconsin, Wyoming

North, South, East, West in our common, objective
opinion (Name of home State)
Is the Best of the Fifty Nifty United States from
thirteen original colonies
Shout 'em,scout'em, tell all about 'em
One by One, till we've given a name to every state
in the good old U....S...A

"Yes, we want!"

Recently, a new commercial and campaign aired for the bilingual program in Madrid... in bad English... If that's not ironic I don't know what is!

The commercial begins with a girl saying in perfect English: "We want to learn another language." The scene changes and there are a dozen children on a basketball court and they scream: "Yes, we want!" The scene then changes to some girls who say, "We want to speak and read English" and the group says: "Yes, we want!" and so on. This campaign is also featured on the radio and buses... Upon being initially heard, some people thought of the Obama campaign, Yes we can. However, there is a difference. This slogan, headed by the campaign the government is using to promote the bilingual schools, is gramatically incorrect.

Yes, we can is correct because it uses a modal verb (like must or should), and can be used in short responses, just like an auxiliary verb (to do, to be). However, "Yes we want" lacks a direct object and is therefore incorrect English. What the slogan should have said was, "Yes we do," which would have been the proper response/agreement to the statements: "We want to learn another language," "We want to speak and learn English" etc.

The objective of the commercial was to promote the bilingual program in Madrid which, similarily to the bilingual initiave in Andalucía, provides the public schools with a great opportunity to learn English from native speakers. So the question that has arisen for public school parents is if this commercial, which costed over 2 million euros to create, is grammatically incorrect and no one caught the mistake before it hit the air, are our children learning bad English in the bilingual schools?

Many Spaniards are afraid that this campaign, "Yes, we want," has ruined the image of the public school bilingual program. Parents are saying these campaigns are not what children need to learn good English. More is explained in this article in El Pais.

However, as my co-worker Dani pointed out: Increíble, no sé si será intencionado, pero no deja de asombrarme que se intente promover la enseñanza bilingüe con un slogan con errores gramaticales. En fin, cosas del marketing!!!

Otherwise known as the common saying, "there is no such thing as bad press." Touché.

"Z"

I never thought the letter "z" was capable of causing me such frustration until just now in my third grade English class. Even though the children have been in English classes for two years they are still rusty with their abecedario so today we were going over it and I was teaching them the "abc" song.

As I have said before British English is taught in the schools in Spain. Seeing that its March I feel pretty confident that I now know the major differences in vocabulary/grammar between American and British English. Such as "rubber" instead of "eraser, "have you got" instead of " do you have" etc.

HOWEVER today something VERY weird happened during the "abcs." I was getting down to the end when all the children started yelling that its "zed" not "zee." The teachers confirmed that they learn "zed" on the English CDs that accompany the textbooks. Um.... I didnt really know what to say. I had never heard "z" pronunced like this. At first I freaked out that I´m almost 23 years old and maybe never learned the alphabet properly, so I ran down to the teachers´s lounge and did a google search, but apparently it´s one of those things that makes our English different from "proper English." The teacher explained to the children that just how some words are pronunced differently in Latin America, some words are different in the US than they are in the UK.

Needless to say I think "zed" sounds dumb and as I was almost out the door a child asked me to repeat how I say "z" again and I said, "ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and that if he ever expected to make it in the US he better remember that.

School of Rock?

Last week when I was teaching the 5th level about Martin Luther King Jr., I gave them a vocabulary worksheet that they first put in alphabetical order and then looked up the terms in the dictionary. One of the words was "Alabama" and the students could not stop saying it. They loved the sound, I think in part because they know the name "Obama" and it sounded like that. So I asked them if they had ever heard of the song and movie "Sweet Home Alabama." No one had heard of it and since the internet in the classroom was not working I put on my "thinking cap" and used my blackberry to play the song on youtube. They loved it! I told them they had to think of a name for our band and that we could sing the song the next class. They still have not come up with a name for our band, but I printed out the lyrics and we all sang along to the live version on youtube today. Maybe our name should be: School of rock? or Colegio de rock?

The best of ESL on the web

Here are the great ESL websites I have been using for teaching:

For teaching adults:

• ESL Discussions
• Using English
• ESL Tutor
• Boggles World ESL

For teaching kids:

• ESL Kids
• English 4 Kids
• Mes English
• A to Z Teacher Stuff

Pen Pals

As part of the bilingual program in my school, the fourth grade has "pen-pals" in an elementary school in England. So far they have written one letter back and forth to each other in English introducing themselves. Most of the letters looked the same. Here is a typical example of one of the British letters:

Hello Maria,

My name is Charlotte. I am from England. I have one sister and two annoying brothers. I love pets. I play cricket at school. I have six fish, 2 cows and 5 chickens.

Are you a boy or a girl? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you like sport?

Anyway the letters were all so cute, and now they are working on a Christmas card in both English and Spanish to send to their pen pals. After Christmas our school will send a letter in Spanish to the British pen pals. It's such a fun way to learn another language and hopefully they can eventually visit each other.

Christmas in the classroom

It´s Christmas time in the classroom this week! Each class will learn the same Christmas vocabulary in English and then have different activities and worksheets to complete...Christmas bingo, Christmas multiple choice, Christmas connect the dots, Christmas coloring...
Here is the list of vocabulary:

Merry Christmas: Feliz Navidad
Santa: Papa Noel
present: regalo
candle: vela
cracker: petardo
stocking: calcetín
star: estrella
reindeer: reno
Christmas eve: noche buena
Christmas tree: árbol de Navidad
Christmas card: carta de navidad
snowflake: copo de nieve
holly: acebo

In every class we will be singing,"Santa Claus is coming to town:"
("Santa Claus se viene a la ciudad")

Estate atento
y no llores mas
no hagas pucheros
te digo por que
Santa Claus se viene a la ciudad

El hace una lista
y la vuelve a hacer
Apunta a los buenos y a los malos
también
Sant Claus se viene a la ciudad
El ve cuando tu duermes
Y también tu despertar
El sabe si vas bien o mal
Te tienes que compartar

You say tomato...

Many people are familiar with the saying, "you say tomato, I say tomato (with British accent). You say potato I saw potato (with British accent)." This phrase signifies that while British and Americans pronounce words differently, no pasa nada...they mean the same thing . Since British English, rather than American English is what is taught in the Spanish Education System, I have learned that it is not only pronunciation that differentiates us from our Mother country. There are actually many words and phrases that my American mind can simply not comprehend/accept. Take one of my first days in 4th grade for example. The lesson was on the classroom and objects in the classroom. The vocabulary consisted of: sharpener, pencil, pen, pencil case etc. One of the activities was for me to hold up pictures of classroom objects and for the students to name all of the items.

Me: What do you see in the picture?
Student: Ruler, book, pencil, rubber.
Me: (my eyes pop out of their sockets) I'm sorry? rubber?
Head Teacher: (whispers) Alex, rubber means eraser.
Me: (what the *****?!?!?) Oh right of course...you know that rubber means something different in America right?
Head Teacher: (giggly) I know, but that's what we say here!

So for the rest of the class I listened to 11yr-olds talk about rubbers and pencils. I'm sorry but I think in the raaaare case they want to eventually study or work in the United States they should also be taught the word "eraser."

There are some other funny words that I have learned and started to get used to hearing on a regular basis in my English classes, but the real kicker has to be the grammatical phrase they use to describe someone or some thing. Here are some typical phrases I would use to describe someone:

She has brown eyes
He has blonde hair
She has a sick body
He doesn't have the best attitude
She has the best clothes

Since we teach British English, instead of saying, "She has..." we have to teach "She's got..."

She's got brown eyes
He's got blonde hair
She's got a sick body
He hasn't got the best attitude
She's got the best clothes

Even though in some cases I could definitely substitute "got" for "has," other times it just sounds flat out wrong. "She hasn't got a rubber..." did that sentence just come out of my mouth!?

Side Hustle...CHECK

I hustled and bustled and I finally got a side hustle! The first month I was here I browsed through Loquo and saw an ad that struck my fancy. A woman was looking for experienced English teachers to become tutors. I sent her an email and since my schedule was pretty hectic for a few weeks we had not been able to get a timetable worked out until last week. She acts as my "agent" and finds people for me to tutor through the English academy she works for. So far I have two clients and one on the way.

The TEFL course that I took over the summer has really come in handy. I went over most of the modules and used several of them to help plan my lessons. The women that I tutor have different levels of English. One has a lot of trouble with grammar and pronunciation especially with words ending in "-ed." I found this blog called esl-tutor which has been a life saver. The other woman I tutor reads and writes very well, but wishes to improve her conversational skills. This website is excellent for conversation topics. I highly reccomend both of them for esl teaching and tutoring!

Happy __________

I created my own Thanksgiving story book for my lessons this week. I printed out tons of pictures (turkeys, pilgrims, indians, feasts, and the Thankgiving Day parade) and wrote out a story about where Thanksgiving comes from and how we celebrate it today. My roommates gave me weird looks all weekend as I sat in the common room coloring the feathers of turkeys and Mayflower ships meticulously. After reading the story to my third grade students and quizzing them on some important Thanksgiving facts, I had one last question and it was to evoke the response, "Happy Thanksgiving." I said, "okay so for this holiday, what would you say to wish someone a happy one...kind of like 'feliz navidad...' or 'feliz pasuca...' " Then they all gave me the, "ohhhh I know what you mean" face, and in unison started singing, "happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..." It was hilarious. The other teacher and I completely cracked up and I almost didn't care that they completely forgot the TITLE of the lesson written in huge letters on the blackboard: THANKSGIVING.