My kids

Teaching high school English to the segundo medios (equivalent to our sophmores) changed my service. Below are the pictures of the kids who brightened my days, made me laugh and taught me how to be a good teacher. I went into teaching at the Marista school primarily to help out my Spanish tutor and friend Hermano Melchor, but I found that I loved teaching and learned so much from the experience.

Not having prior teaching experience everything I did in class was somewhat of an experiment, but overall things went very well. Most of my teaching style came from my own experience at a charter elementary school. I found myself remembering exercises and ways that my elementary teachers engaged us to make learning fun. I started every class with a listening exercise, in which I talked about something while the kids looked at me with wide, open eyes like I was an alien. I asked them to try and write down words that they recognized when I spoke. The short speech was usually followed by laughter and confusion... but as the classes went on the kids always increased the number of words understood. We played games with vocab such as charades, bingo and word races. Another favorite activity was also from ANLC, a "morning message"- a mixed up message with mispelled words for them to correct. Truthfully I don't know who learned more from my English classes, my kids or myself... but I know that we all benefited from the experience and had fun while doing it.

Take a look at my kids... you may find that you have a namesake!