Junquillo Abajo

Trip Start Aug 08, 2008
1
19
42
Trip End Oct 12, 2008


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Flag of Costa Rica  ,
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

My folks once related a friend-of-a-friend story about some people who came to visit from the former Soviet Union, and couldn't believe what they saw in the American grocery stores. The shelves were so well-stocked with such a wide variety of quality products, the Russians supposedly accused their hosts of taking them to a movie set, or something along those lines. That's kind of how I felt today, on my first visit to Junquillo Abajo, the local elementary school where LaVerne was working. My experience with large groups of kids begins and ends with my own childhood, and my memories are not pleasant. But there must be something in the water down here, because these kids are freakin' adorable.
 
Classes are divided by subject, with specialized teachers, as in U.S. middle and high schools, but here the kids stay put and the teachers move around. I'm shadowing Stephanie, the English teacher, as she works her way through a half-dozen classes with students mostly in the 9-12 age range. I couldn't believe it when she introduced me and explained I would be here for three more weeks, and class after class gave me a standing ovation. Several of the little girls rushed up after class to hug me, and two of them, named Daniella and Michelle, I believe, took me on a tour of the campus, asking me about my family, my boyfriend, and my favorite food, color, and sport. The boys are less cuddly but equally eager to impress. One of them (Jose, I think?) did a hilarious John Wayne impression, whipping a bottle of blue spray out from behind his hip and twirling it like a gun, then wiping his forehead with the rag used (with said spray) to clean the whiteboard, exclaiming, "estoy listo a limpiarlo!" (I'm ready to clean it!)
 
My fear now is that I'll get some crazy idea into my head, like going into elementary education, and discover after I'm in too deep that they just don't make kids like this back home.
 
This afternoon we signed up to teach English to the CCS staff. Last week I worked with Marta, the evening cook, and I enjoyed it enough to pick her again. We reviewed the names for various kitchen implements, consumable items, and colors, then worked on conversational phrases. She had a notebook full of phrases in English and Spanish, but as the English phrases weren't written phonetically, they were of little use to her. So we went over some of her old notes as well, and I tried to think of the nearest Spanish equivalent to various English sounds, such as the "wh" in "what" (we settled on "guat.") She was confused by the variant phrases formed by contractions, and I tried with limited success to explain the concept. There isn't anything quite like it in Spanish; the nearest thing I can think of is combining "a" (to) with "el" (the) to make "al," but that's compulsory, while contractions are optional. Then I tried to explain auxiliary verbs and their role in forming negative statements and questions, but I'm afraid I bungled that entirely.
 
I may have a formidable command of the language myself, but I have a lot to learn about how to teach it.
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