Park Elementary Field Trip
For this project we went to Park Elementary and interacted with the bilingual students there. To prepare for the field trip, we practiced our conversation skills in Spanish, picked our children to work with, and practiced reading books in Spanish. The day of the field trip, students either drove themselves or rode with a teacher to Park. We then met our students in their little learning garden. After being paired to the students we would work with we played an ice-breaker game to help lessen the awkwardness. After the game, we would follow our students to their classes and help them and their peers. Finally, we would go back outside and read our Spanish books with them.
So right off the bat things didn’t go quite as planned for me. I was originally going to be working a 5th grade girl, but things changed and I ended up getting paired with two 4th graders. At first I was a little nervous because I wasn’t quite comfortable working with two kids, but I felt as if I could actually do it. The two girls I ended up working with were different but both sweet. One was really shy and didn’t talk a lot, the other was super talkative and sometimes had a hard time sitting still. The first day was somewhat awkward but not really, I didn’t know exactly what to do in their classes so I felt very out of place. The second day was a lot better, I was actually able to help them and their peers during both their technology class and their math class. Both my students spoke English really well, and they both speak some Spanish at home so I did not see a big difference between them and the other students. I did notice they were not completely fluent in Spanish. When I gave them their cards on the second day, they did have some difficulty figuring out what it said because I had written it completely in Spanish. But other than that I didn’t notice any challenges. To be quite honest, I didn’t feel that this affected me as a language learner. I did enjoy the experience of going to the elementary school and helping kids, but that is always a great experience for me no matter the circumstances. I am not sure if I would change the experience, yeah the first day I felt out of place but by the second day it was easier to help the kids and be part of their group. It was odd because I was going there for Spanish but I actually spoke very little Spanish. It was a nice change from everyday school life. I enjoyed the experience and would do it again if given the chance. |