Lots of Preparing!

Before we leave for Ecuador in June, our group has weekend meetings every so often where we review content (since this program is 15 credits) and prepare for traveling. I decided to stay in State College for the month of May so it would be easier to attend these mandatory meetings, instead of traveling back and forth between PA and VA. Penn State is offering "Maymester" classes, so I am taking one of those as well (basic statistics for educators). Last weekend, we had our first weekend session since the semester ended. It was a lot of info crammed into two days! We met from 9am-5pm on Saturday and from 9am-1pm on Sunday. I was exhausted by the end of it. Thankfully, I think this stuff is interesting, so it wasn't completely miserable! We discussed policies and legislation for English as a Second Language students and the different types of ESL programs and ELL (English Language Learner) students. It is mostly stuff required for the certification, and it is good to get it done before we leave so we don't have to learn it in Ecuador when we will be busy with our classes.

Next session (May 31 - June 2), we will FINALLY be discussing packing and the logistics of traveling to Ecuador. We will fly into Quito and stay there for a few days while we get settled/review information. Then we will move onto Otavalo, where we will stay with our host families. The classes we teach will be held at the university there. Also next weekend, we will get to meet with our mentor teachers and talk about what our class will be about.

My teacher already emailed me, and I found out that I will be teaching 9-10 year olds with three other women. My particular class will meet from 3:30-5:45 Tuesdays through Thursdays, and I will be co-teaching with one other girl. There should be about 12 students in the class, and they will all have limited English. We will be teaching English through specific content and our class will be based on that. It won't be a class where the kids come in and sit through a grammar lesson, but rather we will teach content and encourage English through that. The mini-school classes will be in English, because not all of the people in our traveling group know Spanish. Thankfully, I am fairly familiar with the language, but we will not be teaching in Spanish. 

Our class will revolve around the comparison of geography and culture between Ecuador and Burkina Faso. It will be based on a true story of an exchange student from Burkina Faso to the US and his favorite folk tale from his country. I have absolutely NO knowledge about anything related to Burkina Faso, so this will be an experience. My co-teachers and I are in communication so that we can share resources and ideas with one another before we arrive in Ecuador. We all want to be prepared to teach this subject, so a lot of research will be taking place before I leave! 

On another note, I was able to celebrate my birthday Friday with some of my friends from school. Two of them are staying at Penn State for the summer, so we all drove to Hershey Park where we met up with my little sister from my sorority. I had a lot of fun, and it was a great day! 

My little sister, Lauren, and me

Me and my friend, Lori, in our matching Vineyard Vines shorts!