“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard.
This week this quote has rung true as we are no longer sightseeing we at living somewhere new, we are going to work, we have a schedule and a routine and I love it.
On Monday Valou arrived from France and she is lovely and really interesting. She is a teacher as well and she has an amazing set up where she gets to work half the year full time and half the year she has off but gets paid the whole year on part time which is the perfect plan for being able to go away and do big trips. On Monday the 3 of us went off to a school in the village and helped with the mosaics that the students were making from tiny ceramic tiles. These mosaics were of the animals and plants found here in Taltal and the students had been working on them for 11 months already with Barbara and Sonia who we met on Friday evening.
We had a 4th grade group that we worked with, we went back on Tuesday to do the same and worked with the 4th grade still but a different set of students. It was really good and we will go back next Monday and Tuesday.
The rest of the week was excellent as we got to know the students at the English school more and more as the week went on. Hector uses the public library for a lot of lessons, starting at 10am with the housewives. On Wednesday Miss ViVi (one of the housewives) baked an amazing chocolate and caramel cake for breakfast which was fab but felt so naughty eating cake for breakfast. Nathan was loving it!
The 5-6 year olds were learning about parts of the body this week so we got to sing 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes' and do the Hokey-Cokey which they loved especially the bit where you get to put 'your whole self in!' They made real progress from the beginning of the week to the end which was great to see.
The 8-10 years old are a really big, friendly and hyper group of great students but you definitely need to have activities ready and planned with these guys. When they are engaged they are absolutely excellent and their English is really good. Especially with me having very little Spanish language skills it means they have to talk to me in English.
Most groups at the school are working towards a spelling bee on the 7th of November which is great as it gives them a real focus and a competition to work towards. The words are hard and it is helping me with my spellings as I will never in my life spell the word excruciating or ambidextrous wrong again. As well as being able to spell the words they must also classify them as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb etc, this has helped me immensely as I am sure most of you who have read this blog or work with me at JRCS will know that I am not great at literacy and this is helping a great deal. So through teaching the students I am gaining a lot myself.
Hector has a great school here where the kids want to come and learn. It has been running for a little over a year now and everyone who attends is proud of what they have achieved. The public library in Taltal allows the classes to take place there which is a great space.
Back at Jo Richardson I have a classroom full of stationary, pens, glue, scissors, paper and it has made me see just how lucky the students in England are and how they take it for granted that they have so much and so many opportunities. The UK gives students fantastic opportunities to learn another language and we waste it, I know that I definitely did. This has made me realise how important the MFL department is at JRCS. Hector is giving the students and people in Taltal a great chance to learn English. Hector buys everything for the school and carries around a box of pens, paper etc for the students to use. I am sure that this project is going to grow and grow and in a few years there are going to be so many amazing English speakers in Taltal.