February 8, 2008: Second day of Immersion

Today was a much better day! I did not get the overwhelming feeling that I did not want to teach kindergarten. I think that is because I had more of a teacher role today and less of an observer. I was able to facilitate approximately 30 minutes if the reading time!! I read two stories and led an activity! It was very nice to have the exposure and gain some confidence that all teachers need. While I was reading one of the stories many of the children were getting extremely active and began to become a distraction to the rest of the class. I felt a little uncomfortable because I didn't really know how 'hard' to discipline them. My cooperating teacher and I discussed this later. She told me that a lot of new teachers are often too nice to the students which results in chaos within the classroom. This is something I struggle with, well... kind of the opposite. I am very much a structure and order person. I often get easily annoyed when things are not running as smoothly as they can be. I often fear that I may be too mean on the students. Maybe then I overcompensate and am one of those too nice teachers?! It was nice to be able to feel uncomfortable and force me to decided what kind of teacher I actually want to be. I definitely feel as if I could be a kindergarten teacher after today. It is a lot of basics, however, that is where the most difference could be made. Or at least the most obviously outward difference.

So, Spanish...Today I got to use my Spanish!!!! I was extremely excited! There were many moments today where my cooperating teacher spoke to the students because they were not understanding. The math lesson was about balance. The students had to guess how many of a certain object would balance a hard boiled egg. She often repeated her questions in Spanish so that they could do the math without having the English be the reason for their education not continuing. Also, the students had Spanish class. This was extremely interesting. The full term Spanish teacher is sick so there is a long-term substitute teaching. Today, the sub had to leave early so the principal was the Spanish teacher. I do not think I will ever forget that half an hour. It was the most disorganized class I have ever seen. The weird part is that the principal was a kindergarten teacher for 18 years and this is only her second year as a principal. One part of this class really irritated me. The principal seemed to know Spanish, but did not use it. I believe overall, in the entire 30 minutes, maybe 100 words were said in Spanish by the principal. Simple phrases that could have been said in Spanish were said in English: 'Sit here' instead of 'sientate aqui.' It really isn't that much harder to say it in Spanish. Because of this, I began speaking Spanish to the kids as I walked around during their work time. The principal heard me speaking Spanish and asked if I would read a story. I was able to do a read-aloud in Spanish!!!!! It was so exciting. After class, I continued to speak to the kids in Spanish for a little while. I even said some of their names in Spanish rather than the English version. They were all extremely amazed that I was able to speak to them in Spanish.

Being able to actually use my Spanish to the kids caused me to think a lot. I almost want to change my major to ELL. I do not know if that is just from the excitement of actually using my Spanish for something good that I had today or if it is an actual possibility. It is something that I need to think a lot about!!

I am super excited for Monday.