English Camp was pretty much what I
expected it to be.
Communicated with the
children was difficult, but not too bad.
We played a lot of charades, especially when explaining directions for
games.
I taught the younger students, ages
6-9.
Thankfully all my students were 8
or 9.
My co-teacher, Bill, taught the
older students, ages 10-12.
We were
teaching in a small Catholic school in Cislago.
Don Luigi Monza School is named after a Catholic priest from the town
of Cislago who has been declared a Blessed by the Catholic Church.
Everyone at the school was so welcoming and
helpful to me and Bill.
Especially the
English teacher, Martina, who not only drove Bill and I to and from school, but
also helped us during the day with translated and taking care of unruly
children.
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| Martina, Bill, and I |
Each day consisted of morning
prayer, English class, P.E., Music class, a second English class, and play
practice.
Lunch was served at 1:00pm,
the usual time in Italy.
The children
sit at small tables that seat 6 children.
The meal is served in courses!
Martina taught us how things operate.
The students are required to eat the first course in silence!
Which requires a lot of shushing by the
teachers, just like it would in the States.
Our school day started at 8:30am
and ended at 4:00pm.
The students are
accustomed to finishing school at 1:00pm during the school year, so the last
couple hours you could see them getting more and more tired.
After school Bill and I spent about 30
minutes cleaning up and prepping for the next day.
Then Martina would drive us home, we’d have a
couple hours before dinner at 7:30pm or 8:00pm, and I’d either take a nap or
later wish I had taken a nap.
A few
nights I fell asleep on the couch while watching a World Cup match before
dinner.
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| Celebrating Bill's birthday |
The last day of camp we put on a
show for the families.
This year’s theme
was Africa so the students sung songs about Africa and danced to Shakira’s Waka
Waka (their favorite act).
The
performance was a huge success and I think the parents enjoyed it as much as
the students did.
I hope to get a video
clip from one of the parents to put on the blog.
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| The Lions in our final performance. Aren't they cute? |
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| The Robot Song - Final Performance |
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| Making funny faces is fun in any language! |
