El Cim

 

Fact Sheet

Type - Public Primary, Suburban, Mixed

Official Language - Catalan/Spanish

Students - ~600

# teachers (full time) - 30

# English teachers - 3

Ages I taught - 6 through 12

Independent group size - between 5 and 15 students

Full class size - 30 to 35 students

School Website - external link

 

 

Brief

My first year as a language assistant was incredible. After I had been selected by the Ministerio de Educación, I was notified of my school placement. I was thrilled to be placed in the area of Barcelona, a city I fell in love with while studying abroad in Bilbao, Spain. I was fortunate to be the first language assistant at CEIP (Colegio Público de Educación Infantil y Primaria) El Cim, and my role was not yet defined when I arrived. This gave me a lot of control and input on what I could do to help during the academic year. My primary roles were to help students with speaking fluency and accuracy, though as any teacher knows, one quickly takes on new roles as the year progressess.

 

Below is a video tour of the school put together for parents. I invite you to take a look and "visit the school" yourself!

 

 

Daily Expectations

I was asked to help students at the middle and upper levels (3rd year through 6th year) with proficiency and fluency in their written and oral assignments. I needed to work with rotating groups of 10 students all day long. It was invigorating, exhausting, emotionally trying, and simply amazing. My role as an educator with these students was scafolded by pillars of trust I built with the students as the year progressed. I showed that I genuinely cared about their development and they gave back both respect and kindness. I was expected to maintain classroom management and control behavior issues, which happened of course, and learned how to lead a groups of willing and unwilling students alike.

 

Sample Activities

I was encouraged to create my own activities and present them to the English teaching staff each week. I favored games, skits, and songs as ways to get young students speaking English. For better or worse, the Disney Channel programming had captivated the students imaginations at the time, so my first "in" was to work with popular songs from the High School Musical series and other pop culture fads. From this launch point, I moved students away from what others had created into the realm of personal creativity.

 

"My Home" Activity


Here I am giving a presentation on "My Home" to a group of El Cim 3rd graders.

  • I had asked their teachers before had to encourage them to come up with a list of questions for me before and after the presentation. They were eager to learn about me and where I had come from, my likes and dislikes, even if I liked "graffiti designs" or The Jonas Brothers. 
  • They did an outstanding job of asking questions after I had finished. Although they had just met me, they quickly learned my favorite foods (pasta and rice) and a bit about my family! 
  • Later, students were to list three things that they wanted me to know about them. They could also draw a picture of one of them if they felt the urge.
  • After we collected the lists and drawings, I asked each student, one-by-one, to meet me in the hall while the teacher continued on with the daily grammar lesson. I used this as an opportunity to meet each student and introduce myself. I asked them, slowly and with a smile, about their list. They beamed, squirmed, and lauged as the mini-interview took place. It was an excellent opportunity to meet the wonderful kids I'd see each day.
     
Interview Activity

Another fun activity we used also involved questions, only this time the students became amateur reporters. Using the school's AV equipment (a computer and a microphone) students asked me questions while I was put in the hot seat.

Listen here!

 

To visit the school's blog and READ about the assignment, follow this link!

 

Here I am as part of the "judges pannel" for a Halloween skit contest. The students had to design a skit or learn a song in English to perform for their peers (about 50 students). On the far left is Felipe, the assistant director and in the middle is one of the intructors at El CIM.

 

Excursions

No teaching experience abroad is complete without trips out into the field! Here are some photos of a historical scavenger hunt we went on in a nearby town some 30 km away.

A group shot with the Level 6 students outside of the town hall.

Navagating a map while navagating through a new language (Catalan) can be "very funny," as my students would say.