Pumpkins, mexican food and new friends

This past weekend I started celebrating Halloween with the other two American girls that are living here (Kayla and Kendra who are both from Wisconsin). This past Sunday we carved pumpkins. We found some smaller sized pumpkins at a supermercado and we thought it would be fun to carve one, which is exactly what we did. Since we are in Spain, we had to be creative with our utensils and how to make the designs. We decided just to use regular steak knives and soup spoons to carve our pumpkins...can you imagine? It was difficult, but the result was wonderful! We now have the pumpkins sitting outside on the balcony looking in on us, so we can enjoy them.
Before picture: Me, Kayla and Kendra
After picture...what do you think of our creations?
The 3 pumpkins.

On Sunday I also made chicken enchiladas for everyone. Since the weekend before I had Mexican food and told Edita (the host abuela) about the food, she asked if I could make enchiladas for everyone. I agreed. Now it was harder to do it in Spain because they don't have all the right ingredients here, but it still turned out really tasty and I thankfully found some chili peppers so it was a little spicy. It was a hit! Everyone enjoyed it, which was great.

Then on Saturday (yes, I realize I'm going backwards), I went out to lunch with my friend Mayuka who invited two friends of hers for me to meet and we had a wonderful time. The two friends are actually engaged, the guy is Enrico and he is from Italy and the girl is Yuka who is from Japan. Neither of them speak each others native tongue, so they communicate through Spanish...how cool is that?! They are both great people and so much fun to hang out with.

Other than that I didn't do anything out of the ordinary: planning classes, getting coffee, running errands (I'm finally not illegal here!!!!). It was a nice weekend!

Wish you all well.
Love, Celeste

"No se gano Zamora en una hora." (Rome wasn't built in a day)

Hello everyone!

Hope you are all well. I'm so happy that fall has started and I am truly enjoying watching the leaves change their colors. Today (Oct 12th) is Spain's National Day. Basically meaning NOTHING is open today. They celebrate it a lot differently than we celebrate our 4th of July. There aren't really any celebrations except for a small parade in Madrid where the armed forces march down the main street and the military's marching band accompany them. The Royal family as well as the president and vice-president watch from a booth. Today, I also believe that they are welcoming home some of the troops that were over in Iraq. Until now, I didn't even realize Spain was involved. They don't have many people fighting over there, but a few troops.
Mercado Campillo-The main market in Valladolid to buy fresh fish and meats.
The only Roman church in Valladolid.
IES Emilio Ferrari. The school I work at.
This is the public library, which I now have a library card to.
The main river that flows through Valladolid. El rio Pisuerga. Also, if you notice on the left side there is some sand; I have been told many times by my students that that is Valladolid's "beach". If they only knew what our beaches looked like...hehe.

So this past Saturday I traveled to a small city called Zamora. It is a city in the region of Castilla-Leon and only an hour and a half away from Valladolid. I decided that this time around, I'm going to visit all the main cities in Castilla-Leon because I just love this region of Spain. I feel like it is the oldest region. Mayuka and I decided to take a day trip somewhere and we decided on Zamora because neither of us have been there. We spent the first half of the day there looking around at the old Romanico (Romanic) churches and buildings. The Romanico architecture is absolutely beautiful. We also visited the cathedral of Zamora and the ruins of the castle that once stood there. The castle was really neat to visit because even though there were only ruins, you can distinctly see where the rooms were divided, where the kitchen was and even the moat. Also, from the top of the castle there was a beautiful view of the entire city and the surrounding pueblos. The city was very interesting.
El rio Duero and a view of the villages around the city of Zamora.
Mayuka and I in front of one of the Romanic churches in Zamora. They look huge from the outside, but they are actually very small.
Plaza Mayor with a church placed right in the center. That's the first time I've seen that.


The Castle of Zamora.
Inside of the castle.
The cathedral of Zamora.
This is Zamora's cathedral's "imagen" that they carry during the processionals of Semana Santa.
Mayuka and I loved these little statues...they're so silly!

After visiting the city, Mayuka and I returned to Valladolid and found this Mexican restaurant close to where I live. The restaurant was decorated with bright colors and little figurines of mariachis. The menu had so many great traditional Mexican dishes and I was surprised that the food was so good. I had been to a Mexican restaurant before in Spain and hated it, but this one was fantastic. They even made the food a little spicy which is somewhat of a feat for Spain. After lunch we headed out to a bar to watch Spain's National football (soccer) team play against Armenia. They one 2-1. :)

Well, nothing more to say. Wish you all well and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Love, Celeste

4ESO Acting

Bringing fun to the classroom

Again, things are going well in the classroom. I am struggling with one of my 2ESO classes though because the students do not listen to the other teacher or me when we ask them to be quiet or when we are talking, but it's something I am working on.

This past week I had a lot of fun with my lessons and tried to add activities to make them more fun. My favorite lesson by far was with my older students, 4ESO. The head teacher told me that every other week I must do a specific unit activity from a workbook that will prepare the students for their final exam (usually writing,reading, speaking and listening), but that the other weeks I can do anything I want as long as it focuses on the students' speaking and listening skills.

So, as I was thinking of things we could do I remembered that the teachers said sometimes they watch episodes of FRIENDS in their classes. I decided that the students should act out scenes from friends. I found two scenes from two different episodes (for the FRIENDS fans: The one where Mr. Heckles dies and The one where Chandler doesn't like dogs). I was expecting to have the 13 students that I normally get, but so many were absent this week that I only had 9 and only one was a guy, but as you know there are 3 guys in the show. No problem though, the girls were excited to play one of the guys.

We first talked about the script and what was happening in the scene then they acted it out twice and then I filmed them doing it. It was so much fun and they did a great job. I'm going to try to upload the video here (but I haven't had luck so far). It was great though.

Also this past Wed-Fri I was in Madrid for a conference for my job. All the Culture/Language assistants (from US, UK, France, Italy, Germany and China) were there from only certain regions of Spain. We were separated into groups and had a total of five different meetings pertaining to what we are doing in Spain, what the school systems are like in Spain and ideas for activities in the classroom. The last one was the only useful one, because I have already started teaching I knew all the other information. Apparently not all the schools in Spain start at the same time, some start in Oct and end in the last week of June. It was nice though because I met some other people in the region of Castilla-Leon, where I am.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend! I'm going to see a play tonight called "La vida es sueno" by Calderon de la Barca which was written during the Renaissance period and one of the more famous plays in Spain. It should be good.

Wish you all well!
Celeste

Keep on, keeping on

I'm now well into my second week of classes (remember Thursday is my last day) and I'm having so much fun with the students. I think I'm really enjoying teaching English to them because first they can speak well enough and are able to ask questions and respond to questions. It is interesting also to hear what mistakes they make based on how they translate words or even sentences from Spanish to English.

I had a new class this week at the 2 level (I now have 2 classes at the 1 level, 2 at the 2 level, 1 at the 4 level and then the workshop for the primary students) and this class proved to be difficult. They would talk non-stop and I used so many different techniques to get them to stop talking and none would really work for that long. Today, it was the complete opposite. I moved one student to sit up front and the whole atmosphere changed. Every day in my classes it seems to get better.

Out of all the classes, I'm most looking forward to teaching the 4 level because the teacher has given me more freedom with what I can teach and I will have half of the class to myself while she takes the other half to the computer room.

I am slowly getting to know the other staff at the school, it is hard though because the Bilingual teachers seem to always be separated from the other teachers. I have met the director/headmaster of the school as well as the secretaries who have all been a great help. The school is a lot different from my own. I will take pictures of it and share them with all of you. The school is indoors (as are all Spanish schools) and it has three levels. The Bilingual project teachers (the teachers who teach in English) have their room on the second floor and there are two multimedia rooms, one of which has a smart board in it. Those of you who don't know what a smart board is, it's an interactive board. They are very cool and fun to use. You can show a PowerPoint on it and then use the electronic pens to write or draw on your PowerPoint or you can use the smart board as a regular white board. It's really fun to use.

The school is on the outskirts of the city of Valladolid, about a good 45-50 minute walk from where I live. It is in an area where a lot of homes are. I'll share more as I go along. I'm having so much fun and I really enjoy the teachers I'm working with.

I wish you all well and I give you lots of hugs (as my 2 level students say).

Besos, Celeste

Teaching a Second Language

It is strange to be back in Spain, it feels like a while ago since I was last here. I'm living with my past host family Julio and Edita who are treating me so well and making my transition here a little easier. My first day at the high school(which is called instituto) IES Emilio Ferrari was Wed Sept. 15th. I didn't actually go into any classrooms, but I talked to the coordinator of the bilingual program, Teresa, about what my schedule as well as the other two conversation teachers' schedules will be for this week. We only work 12 hrs a week, which will end up being 3 hrs a day with Fridays off. She hasn't given me my permanent schedule yet, but I'm hoping it will be similar to my schedule this week.

Today (Thursday) I went into three different classrooms to talk and present a powerpoint presentation to the students about myself and CA. The high schools here are for 4 years, but the ages are different 1ESO=12/13 yr olds, 2ESO=13/14 yr olds, 3ESO=14/15 yr olds and 4 ESO= 15/16yr olds. There are three subjects taught in English at this school: science, history/geography and English. Today I was placed in three different English classrooms. My first class was with 1ESO students and I was surprised to see how young they are. They were quiet and didn't ask many questions about me. Then I was with a 2ESO class whose teacher is Teresa and these students I enjoyed a lot because they were a little more communicative with me and they were not as afraid to use their English. The last group I was with were 4ESO students. The teacher is Alicia and she also teaches the 1ESO class I presented to. The 4ESO group was a little tough because the students were very talkative. They were polite during my presentation, but afterward they were very chatty. It will be a little difficult with this group. In Spain, teachers don't give students consequences or reprimand them for misbehaving so it will be interesting to see what happens.

It is nice being in Valladolid again, some place I know well and feel comfortable in. I hope you are all well. I will write more when I know more.

Hugs all around! Celeste :D

What the future holds...

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this blog now that I am back home, but I am going to take a break from my blog until I return back to Spain in late September. For those of you who I haven't spoken to in awhile, I'd like to share with you my placement in Spain. I will be living in Valladolid (where I studied my first time in Spain) and be teaching in a bilngual high school with 13-16 year old students. I'm looking forward to going back to "my" old city and having new experiences. I hope to see most of you soon.

Besos!