Classroom management 101

Ecuador continues to be a learning experience for me. Today I went to the 5/6/7 grade English class. First of all, the class had a very interesting setup. There were 3 different chalkboards, with some desks facing each one. I asked about this, and was told it was for the different grades. The 5th graders all face one chalkboard, the 6th graders face another, and the 7th graders face the third. And there's only one teacher! I'm amazed at how he teaches like this, and essentially has 3 different lessons going on at the same time. The other volunteers rave about him as a teacher and say he has excellent classroom management skills. His students are he most well-behaved out of all the classes. I wish I spoke Spanish so I could talk to him about his teaching style, but I don't and he doesn't know any English either, so our communication consists mainly of smiles and hellos.

It's raining here again today (as it has been since I got here), but the roof of the schoolhouse is made of tin, so I found it very difficult to hear what was going on. When it really pours, the teachers have to yell in order for the students to hear them! Then the students start yelling, and it can get pretty hectic
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The other volunteers wanted  to make a matching game for the students to practice their vocabulary, with pictures and the English word, but the Internet was down and the power was out so we ended up just writing them all out by hand. The kids seemed to really enjoy it though ! ( and I've picked up enough basic Spanish words that I could actually help them with this one.)
I went to the class of younger students afterwards. They typically sing songs in English, and learn s new animal everyday that they then spend 20 minutes colouring. Trying to get them not to hoard all the crayons seems to be s battle. Sharing is caring. Today they learned the word armadillo. I'll be honest I don't think any of them could actually say it, but they enjoyed the colouring. And then played hot potato, which was s huge hit.

All in all though being here makes me appreciate how privileged teachers are in Canada! We don't have to worry about Internet going out all the time, for the most part we don't have to teach 3 different grades at once, and we don't have to worry about parents refusing to speak to us because we're "gringos" (which is apparently something that happens here.)

Tonight, one of the locals has invited us to his place to have quail for dinner (that'll be a new experience for me), and then we've invited the students to come to the volunteer house to watch a movie. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings.