Sara's Adventures Abroad: First Day Teaching!

Day 8

Kylee and I woke up at about 8:40 as we had to teach at 10:30 and were quiet since our roommates were still sleeping as they started at 11:30. The other girls in Primaria met us at the front door and we all walked to the school together. We walked really fast since it was raining out and our things were starting to get wet. We arrived at the school and met with out teacher again, M. Ventresca who knew a bit of English, but was not fluent. She was really nice and tried to be as helpful as possible. We had grade 4 class first and the kids were so excited to see us! It felt like we were famous because everywhere we walked in the school, the kids would wave and smile at us. We really stood out too. We walked into our first class and the kids were having a kind of celebration because one of the students had their communion. There was cake, pizza, and some other strange looking treats. Elena insisted we take some food and the kids surrounded the three of us bombarding us with questions they had. The children all spoke English pretty well! One boy asked us if we all had boyfriends and then after in Italian he said “ALL SINGLE!!” They asked us what our favourite animals were, our ages, and if we had sisters of brother. They also asked us surnames - they say surnames instead of last names and I told the girls my last name and they had no idea. I felt like saying to the children, that’s how I feel about your names, as I have no idea how to pronounce most of them. The students all learn British English, so they all speak very proper. For our first class, I did the introductions, Alex Kylee and I all said our names and I explained to them how we flew on an airplane all the way from Canada to teach them. Then we got them to say their name and one thing about them. It was funny because there was a student named Sara, which had the exact same spelling as I do. Elena explained how Sara is a popular name in Italy, and asked if I was Italian, which I am clearly not! Some of the common names were Lorenzo, Gaia, Lorenza, Francesco, Frederica, Alberto, and Sara! Next we went over the animals. Last night we prepped some drawings of animals for the lesson. We had the children repeat the name of the animal after us. Then we sang Old McDonald had a farm, the children already knew the song but in English, so they sang some of it with us. Elena would translate what we were saying to the children in Italian, so they understood what we were trying to do. We played charades with animals next. They kids absolutely loved it. There is no classroom management with the teachers in Italy, they are so loud, and the teacher just talks over them and will yell at them. That was one big difference from teaching in Canada compared to Italy. Charades took up a big part of the hour because every child had a turn and it was a pretty big class. After charades was done, we handed out bookmarks that had the Canadian anthem on them and the kids wanted us to sing O Canada to them. We went through their books. They have a workbook which is just pieces of blank paper, they have an exercise book which is kind of like a textbook with space for them to fill in answers and they have a textbook. The books they have are theirs that they paid for, and are more of a little journal than a Canadian textbook.

After we finished in that class, we headed to our other grade 4 class. This class only had six students in it, usually there are 18, but the teacher explained there were many absent because of communion. This class was a lot quieter than the previous one. We planned the same lesson, but had the students write the animals in their workbooks and draw a picture beside it. The students are all very artsy and take their time drawing precise pictures, instead of Canada where they just do a quick drawing. The kids don’t have cubbies and instead put their backpacks on the back of their chairs. Also, some classes have SMART boards, while others just have a small easel with a chalkboard. The walls are covered with posters though.

After that class we had lunch at 12:30. We sat in the lunchroom with the kids this time. We had some sort of egg flat thing, which I didn’t eat, peas, blood oranges, a bun, penne with pesto and water again. The kids were extremely loud and were never told to be quiet. Even in the lunch rooms the kids would come up to us and just stare as they were so fascinated.

After we ate lunch we had a break until we had to teach at 2:30. Kylee, Alex and I mostly just lesson planned and relaxed. We were already so exhausted and had only taught 2 classes! Once it hit 2:30, we looked for our class and it took us a while to actually find it. We were in grade 3 this time, and again we did our introduction and went around the class with names and 1 favourite thing. This class had a Sara in it. We decided to do a signal for the students to be quiet as it was chaotic trying to get their attention in the morning. I explained to students that your finger on your mouth means quiet. Then we explained the ticket reward system. I brought Canadian pins and pencils, and we got Canada flags and leis as prizes for the students so when a student was quiet we would give them a ticket and then we would draw names at the end of the day. For this class, we prepped a poster of the human body and labeled different parts. We went over the different parts and had them repeat it after us. Then we asked them to point out the different parts. We sang “head and shoulders knees and toes” with them and they already knew it so they thought it was fun. Next we played Simon Says and they also had a blast with it! The teacher had to explain in Italian how to play the game as they didn’t understand after we explained it, but they quickly caught on. After the game we had them copy the poster into their notebooks and they we drew names for the rewards and gave out 3 prizes. For the students who didn’t get any prizes we gave them the O Canada book marks, and this class wanted us to sing the Canadian anthem to them so we did then we got them to sing the Italian anthem.

We left and went to our last class of the day at 3:30 – 4:30. We did the same lesson plan for a smaller grade 3 class. We walked home, the day cleared up and it was nice and sunny. Alex, Kylee and I lesson planned for Tuesday and then went to dinner. For dinner first course was pasta with tomato sauce, second course was beans and carrots with a toasted ham (bacon) and cheese sandwich thing that was surprisingly good and then we had another piece cake for dessert again. We came back to the room and had a meeting with Jenny and the other Primaria students and went to bed.