first visit to a different school :)

So today (Thursday, Day 7) was my second day in my school placement. It was very interesting. I really liked today. We were only there for 2 blocks of classes but it was very interesting. I first sat in a math class for the 6th year (12th grade for us) where the teacher was the principal, Annalisa. One of the girls switched seats with a classmate so that she can translate for us but Annalisa told her not to. She basically said that in America we will have students who do not speak the language that the lesson is being taught in so we will have to learn how to deal and that math is a universal language so the should understand it anyways. Which I did so I felt so proud of myself. They were learning about functions. They were basically doing domain, image, constant, increasing, decreasing, is this graph a functions (vertical line test), etc. I could follow all of it which was very cool. It was weird because not all the students pay attentions so they are talking to their friends but the teacher does not really do a lot of classroom management. We stress classroom management so much in the states but it is not hugely present in Argentina classrooms. Some times teachers try but there were a few classes where the teacher just kept teaching over the talking students. The students talk softly and the teacher never raises their voice to talk but I still think there should be a little bit of classroom management. After each 80 minute block (two 40 minute classes) there is like a 10 minute recess. All of us observers would be completely surrounded by students. Almost all the students would be girls but some guys were there. The guys seemed to want to stare at a distance and look cool more than they wanted to talk to us. lol.

After the first block I went to a English language class. That class was really cool and I really liked it. They were learning present continuous grammar and the weather. They got to listen to a CD to hear some native speaker but the person had a British accent so I am thinking that its not really American English but English from England/Britain. The funny thing that happened in this class is that I got asked if I was born in America by the teacher when the students were working in their workbooks. She also asked me if I knew Spanish and if I was from the same city as Callie, the girls I was observing with. I feel a little insulted but not much. They just must think that I am from another country and moved to America. Sorry to disappoint but I was born and raised in America with a dad who was born and raised in America.

We got to leave around noon again but it was because at 1pm we had to meet up with our classmates going to other schools to go visit those schools. We had a quick lunch at the hotel and I went off to El Anglo with my roommate. She is in a 1st grade class and the kids are SOOOOO cute! There is this one Asian boy that was sitting right in front of my. I wondering if he realized we have the same heritage. Probably not because he doesn't see a lot of Asians in Alta Gracia. It probably didn't phase him. At El Anglo I felt like more of a rock star than I did at the other two schools. I was always crazy surrounded by students during recess. Most were really little kids asking me the same questions: "What is your name?" "How old ar you?" "What color is this (points to something)?" The kids were really adorable. Some spoke English and some didn't. I felt bad for the ones who didn't and kept asking me questions because I did not know how to respond. In the first class I sat through was basically an evaluation of the previous days math and just sitting around as the teacher graded their homework. During the first class the teacher showed us her planning binder. It was so intricate with each page decorated like a scrapbook. The second class was a gym class so basically watch little first graders run around like crazy. It was so sweet. The first graders were so cute. I am going to have to visit there again and sit through some different classes.