February 8, 2010

Wow, I am not very good at this whole blog thing. I think now that I am starting to get into the school routine down here, i.e staying busy, I am finding less time to sit down and update. I will continue to try and post 3 or 4 times a week, but I am not going to make any promises.

So it was a pretty low-key rest of the week and weekend.

I feel like I had a breakthrough with my 8th grade class on Friday. I was finally able to get them a little more involved and even got them to crack a couple of smiles while I was teaching. It was a nice change from the usual stone cold “this is boring/I have no idea what you are talking about” look I have gotten from them the last two weeks. That was exciting.

My ESL class is starting to drive me a little crazy. They are so excited to learn English, which is great, but their overzealousness is very disruptive and I need to figure out a way to funnel that energy and enthusiasm into a productive outlet. I have been trying to get them up and moving around using vocabulary and having them write on the board, but that really hasn’t been enough—they are still crazy. Mrs. Lopez, the other teacher (she teaches the ESL, spelling and reading portion of the class, I teach phonics and vocabulary), has decided to use the name on the board system, which to be consistent I will use as well. So, we’ll see how that goes.

My 7th grade and 9th grade classes have been going really well. I have been having a lot of fun with my 7th graders. They are a pretty talkative group but I think I have scared them enough to have them on their toes. How? Well a combination of catching them cheating on a test (for another class) and having a stern conversation with them, as well as the strategic calling out of students or the class. Ninth grade is such a small class (9) and they are pretty respectful that I can just go into class and teach and get through what I need to get through.

So there may be a few bumps here and there with the classes, but overall it is going really well and I haven’t had too many problems.

This weekend was pretty chill.

Friday night consisted of about 2 hours of Euchre play in which my partner (Rachel) and I won three straight games and did not give up more then 5 points in all three. It was pretty fantastic. Saturday we were planning on walking down to town but it was cooler and rainy all day so we all did our own thing. Between Friday night and Saturday I watched all three of the Lord of the Ring movies. It was epic to say the least. Since we didn’t get to town on Saturday a group of us walked down on Sunday. The main motive: buy food for the Super Bowl. That’s right, we went to town, bought salsa and chips and three pizzas, and had ourselves our own Super Bowl party down here in Honduras. The game was on two channels, both which were in Spanish, but we were able to watch it (but no commercials). Go Saints!

Overall it was a nice and relaxing weekend. Which was nice after last weekend’s trip to Santa Rosa. Anyway, that’s all for now, I’ll hopefully post something mid-week, hopefully Wednesday. Until then, take care!