Welcome to Madrid!

I am completing my international practicum at Colegio La Salle San Rafael in Madrid, Spain.  I have been placed in a few different English language classes, rather than with one age group for the whole day.  At Boston College I study elementary education, and here I am mostly with the secondary students which has been really interesting.  My day consists of 4 different class periods with four different age groups, 3 being secondary and 1 primary.  Thus far I do believe that I prefer the primary students, as my studies suggest, however I am eager to see how I feel at the end of the semester in regards to working with the older students.

So far my day has consisted of taking pairs of students in the hallway to have meaningful conversations in English.  The teachers have expressed to me how important they think it is for the students to practice their English by participating in a fluid conversation about everyday life, school, and hobbies.  In addition to that, I have also enjoyed assisting the teacher in class by helping students one on one while working on an individual task, or simply helping to redirect attention to where necessary.  I have noticed that the Spanish students' behavior towards the teacher is much different than in the United States.  Here students talk over the teacher and ignore her instructions far more than in the U.S.  In fact, it was so bad one class period where I felt like I needed to step in and tell the students that their behavior was unacceptable because of how rude they were to their teacher.  Although I wanted to step in, I refrained since I am still new to the school and need to understand the cultural differences that I may just need to get accustomed to.  Rather than step overstep, I just walked around and quietly asked students to stay quiet and focused.  This is something that has been an issue only mostly in the secondary classes and I am interested to see how it changes over the semester.

The elementary students are excellent at English.  So good, that I think they may be better than the secondary students!  I was speaking with their teacher and she informed me that these students were part of the first year of having bilingual education at their school.  It was incredible to see how smart and attentive they were, while also speaking impeccable English.  The secondary students instead have only had a few hours of English class a week since they began school as a young child.  It is really amazing to see the difference a bilingual education makes in language acquisition in young children.  I have only scratched the surface of my experience here and I look forward to the exciting time with my students to come!