I met the class this week and it was great to have a pre-class visit. We got the meet all of the students without the added pressure of teaching them on the first day. Although, thinking about the first class, I'm a bit apprehensive, even though I'll be facing a room of approximately 15 kindergartners. I was afraid once all their eyes turned on me and it was my time to speak, all my Spanish knowledge would disappear and I'd just stare back at them, my mind completely blank. Thankfully, that didn't happen, and I was able to get by and , hopefully, teach them a concept or two in my admittedly imperfect Spanish. However, my Spanish knowledge combined with their Spanish as well as some broken English helped us get along just fine.
The teacher mostly teaches in Spanish, though afternoons seem to be largely devoted to learning English. It's also the language that most of the kids used with each other and with us, though once in a while they would break out into English without prompting.
My experience with this class reminded me of most situations I've been in which included a group of young kids: loud, fun and always partial-chaos. I taught Sunday school for a couple years, and have been babysitting since I was 10, so I was very familiar with the behavior I saw in the class, though I've never volunteered with or babysat children who spoke only Spanish. The kids were enthusiastic to see new faces. New is always interesting when you're 5 or 6! Many of them loved to answer questions...even when their answered had nothing to do with the original questions. But they were excited to see us, and seem excited about our future classes together. I think this is going to be a really fun and different experience for me, and I like the idea of presenting more difficult concepts, like trade or business, to children through children's stories. It's a great way to begin fostering an importance of entrepreneurship and community involvement at a young age.
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