El último día

Ayer fue mi último día en el colegio. I got thank you cards from all of my classes, and it was really nice to read all of the comments.

Some of my favorites:

"Hola! Thank you for being an amazing teacher! Good luck in the future! You will make a great teacher :)"

"Thanks for being our great teacher and your support and help for us to learn Spanish. I appreciate that. We'll miss you so much."

"You were so helpful and a great teacher. I understood everything you taught in class. You were very helpful at Smart Lunch too! Thank you!"

Some of the more hilarious ones:

"Thank you. I wish you were my teacher." Oh darling, what would you call the past 6 weeks?

"Thank you for teaching us even though we weren't the best kids. You will be missed!" 

"Thank you for teaching our class! I will miss you putting sad faces on my homework log." (she never did her homework, lol)

"Should of stayed. Now I won't pass lol." (He wasn't passing when I was there, I don't know why me leaving makes that much of a difference... lol)

Oh, they gave me trouble some times but I'm gonna miss them :')

Middle School Visit

Today I went to visit Amber at her middle school! She taught Spanish 2 and 3 during her semester, and it was nice to see some of the kids she taught. They were so well behaved and interested in speaking/using Spanish, I couldn't believe it. As her CT explained, in a magnet school like theirs, with so many electives, they tend to get the kids that want to be there instead of those that "have" to, so that makes it better. Still, it was wonderful to see students that wanted to learn and were easily answering the teacher's questions and participating. They did a fun activity that was "speed-dating" style: 4 rows of students, given a topic to talk about with their partner for 2 minutes. After the time was up, the teacher threw a stuffed tiger to a student, who then had to answer the prompt for the class. Then they kept it as the students moved over 2 seats. Again, 2 minutes to fulfill the prompt, then the student with the tiger threw it to another student (on the other side of the room, preferably) to give an example for the class. It was meant as practice for the placement test that students will have to take if they want to get credit for Spanish in high school, but it was just great speaking practice in general! Amber and I tried out some of the prompts ourselves :) I really enjoyed my visit!! Thank Amber!!

Well everyone, yesterday was my last day of being in charge of classes. Although I dropped Spanish 4 last week, I stuck with both Spanish 1's until the end of the chapter, which was yesterday. I always have mixed feelings about test days. They're nice because you're not leading the class, but they can be just as stressful because you have to keep your eye on them at all times to make sure no cheating is going on. The test I wrote had about 10 sections, one of which was a speaking part where they had to go in the hall with a randomly assigned partner and make plans for the weekend. I haven't listened to them yet, but here's hoping they did okay!

Today I am grading these tests, grading some compositions, and observing my CT starting Chapter 5. I wonder how the students will deal with switching teachers again? For Spanish 4, it was more of a gradual change, but because of time constraints, I just have to drop Spanish 1 cold turkey. It is nice to be in the background again, though.