Teaching Update

How is it November already? I can't believe how fast the time is going. I've been teaching for over a month now. My classes are great. For the most part the students are fun to work with but I do notice a significant gap in maturity between my younger and older students. As I mentioned before, the students here are between 12 and 16. The 12 year olds are adorable and young and innocent. The 16 year olds are funny and engaged and passionate. But my 13-15 year old students, well, they can be a bit of a nightmare.

It's like a cesspool of puberty and awkwardness combined excess energy that lacks any sort of direction. I feel like I'm being forced to view the instant replay of how awkward middle school was the first time. Spoiler alert, it's worse in slow motion. Oh and the icing on the cake, I have no real power because I'm an assistant not the actual teacher, which is both a blessing and a curse. So I've been working on my "I'm angry" and "I'm disappointed" with you stares. For the most part though, classes are fun and even the challenging groups have good moments. And the teachers here have continued to be incredibly kind and supportive.

My teaching responsibilities vary depending on the class. Sometimes I assist with dictation and listening exercises by reading aloud, sometimes I guide the class through textbook exercises or group discussions. I organize activities and games related to the current class vocabulary or topics. I make and present talks about topics related to the unit and american culture. With my older students I work in smaller groups on discussion practice and speaking games. It is a good variety and enough to keep me interested and engaged with my classes.

Because I only teach 3 days a week, the hour commute each way to school isn't that bad. It actually has been a great opportunity to practice speaking Spanish since most of the teachers don't speak English. However, you don't really appreciate that feeling of fearing for your life until you're riding shotgun with a person driving a manual transmission along a windy coastal road who also talks with their hands.

As for Santiago, the more I discover about the city, the more I love it. In the last few weeks I've also been able to travel to Lugo and walk part of the Camino to Finisterre so I'll share more about those experiences in posts coming soon.