Christmas comes to UTEQ

 

THis is a very clever tree made out of plastic bottles with strings of lights inside.  I haven't seen it lit up but I bet its pretty.  There is an occasional green bottle which I bet looks real nice.

This is the tree from a distance, with the school letters in front.

Across from the tree you'll find this nativity scene with pine cones hanging from the ceiling and colored balls decorating the bushes nearby. 

Th

Then you go a bit further and encounter this altar/ shrine to the Virgin Guadalupe. Candles, cactus, flowers and other things I can't make out.

This is not Christmas related, just another beautiful specimen on campus.  My host in Costa Rica, long long time ago, before Peace Corps, talked about her "tuna" often.  I don't recall what she said probably because I could not understand it but it never occurred to me that she was talking about a giant cactus.  Well, she was.  This cactus is call "tuna" and the fruit is pictured below in a closeup.  The tuna fruit is delicious.  Of course you peel it but its not unlike a kiwi...very sweet, soft, just real good.

The call the fish, "atuna."

f

 

This is one of our cohort, Aeden.  A real nice guy and a good sport about everything.  His host mother took him to a concert and when he got there he learned he was a judge of a Christmas show.  He's a TEFL volunteer and is a great guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I'm listening to a story n NPR ( my early morning tradition in addition to listening to WAMU) both on line, about the rise of regional Mexican music.  I have to admit that I can't recognize the various regions but I also have to admit  that I really like the music with the tubas, accordians and of course Mariachi...and I think those are from three different regions....according to NPR at least.  Apparently, a young female singer won a Latin grammy recently.  Have to learn more about that  but I fear some grandmothers , especially me, would have trouble "blending in" at the clubs around here.  

I must state here that I have been enthusiastically received by the students and faculty at UTEQ, University Technologico Queretaro.  I've posted several photos  of the campus in the past but I haven't said much, if anything , about the classes and students.   So far, I've been attending various classes with various teachers to get to know the system, routine, and the students and teachers.  At first, I felt really scattered but now can see the benefit of this.  Classes are over for this term but there is a series of exams and tutorials between now and Christmas break so it will be confusing to me until Jan 10 when classes resume. 

Yesterday was a somewhat typical day.  I co-taught with another teacher in which she introduced the lesson which consisted of them getting into pairs or trios to write, in English of course, a conversation in which they used the particular grammatical structures they had studied in the preceding term.  She explained the assignment, gave them a time limit, and told them to get into pairs or trios and to get started. I observed for a time; they followed directions and were settling in to get to work.   I then was able to contribute by putting examples of the structures they were supposed to include on the white board ( as scaffolding) and quietly explained the technique to my co - teacher.   She is an excellent teacher but had not heard the word and was very receptive and in fact, added something to my writing that further scaffolded the assignment.  They worked away while she and I walked among the groups giving suggestions, examples, questioning, etc. All advice was welcomed by the students.  Finally, time ran out and I met with each group in an empty classroom across the hall where the students read  and recorded their conversations, I made a few ( very few in fact) adjustments in their dialogues ( mostly adding or deleting articles or prepositions, curiously)and  then I read their conversations aloud and they recorded  me. Plan is that they will listen to the two recordings, note the pronunciation and make adjustments.  They will read their conversations to their teacher as part of their end of term evaluation of  their "speaking "  skill.  Now here comes the good part for me.....the students were so excited after they read their work aloud and saw how few corrections I made...it was thrilling, to me for sure, and judging by their smiles and body language, to them as well.  Felt good about my contribution, finally.  

Some other good things have been happening.at school..I have to remember I've only been at the site for 2.5 weeks and now we go on a month long vacation.  Actually the students have exams and the teachers have to do grades etc, but there are no classes again until Jan 10 and, due to PC policy, I can't go outside the country until after Feb 9, three months from swearing in. 

 Steve is bringing Gringo down for me on Dec. 15 so this will give us time to get used to the new apt ( and that is a story ) before I have to leave him there alone for most of the day.  There are a lot of good windows so I'll get it set up so that he can look out at the activities most of the day.  Also, there is a big fenced in area where I can walk him without the fear of loose dogs hounding us.  Sadly, there is no grass, just cement, so he'll miss his grass chewing.  Maybe I can get a plot of sod for him.  We'll see.

There was a kerfuffle at PC about my bringing Gringo down and about Steve bringing him.  It got resolved but I won't go into it on the blog.

Our role here with PC is not only to teach English but also to share our culture and learn about their culture and as much Spanish as I can.So, in the culture vein, last week I gave a little presentation to about 8 classes about Thanksgiving, its origin, traditions, meaning. etc.  The US state Dept. has a website called American English and on it they have some materials, including some for teaching about some of our holidays.  I knew the Thanksgiving story  we were taught  as children had omitted a lot of truths but I didn't want to include all of them...I didn't want the whole thing. to be a downer.  The piece on the State Dept. site is not too bad so I used it and added some explanations along the way....like where Squanto had learned English....he had been enslaved by British explorers years before the Pilgrims arrived,  taken to England, escaped to get back home only to find that most of his tribe, the Wapanoag ( Patuxent) had been driven from their homes and many were slaughtered or killed by disease.  The point I want to make here on this blog is how very interested the students were.  I would read a paragraph, they would follow along with me, with the hard copy I had given them,  then their teacher would translate into Spanish ( this being a cultural lesson, I wanted them to hear the story),  I was very pleased at their interest level and how well they followed along and truly seemed to enjoy the lesson, did not get bored by all the reading and listening they had to do and their questions and comments showed their attentiveness.  It was good.

The most interesting thing I get to do is interact with the students.   I met one recently who is outstanding in a number of ways .  Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to him before the class he is running ( its an after school sort of extra class ) started their presentations.  apparently some of the students with higher English skills work as “immersion” teachers with the very beginners.  He is one of the teachers and he had his students doing their final projects about countries.    He invited me to watch  the presentations and one of the countries some of  the students had selected was the US. 

In very difficult English they reported various facts like, population, climate, the flag, the sports, etc and typical foods.  I was mortified to learn that hot dogs and hamburgers are our "national typical" food according to some website these kids found.  I'll put some photos on here to show...some other groups did Jamaica or Canada, and it was cute. 

These girls somewhere determined that Flan was a "typical" dish served in Great Britan so we all had some very good flan.

This group did the U.S. and you can see their poster of a Hamburger with the various ingredients identified, including bacon.

This group did Canada and focused on the fact that it is cold there so that one kid had on a jacket and knit cap.  I think they did say the most popular sport is hockey.  Their pronunciation of Maple Leaf was so cute.

This is the young man who is their teacher and about whom I wrote a few words below.   He is really an amazing young person.

This group did Jamaica and the boy is dressed in "typcial" dress and the fellow with the guitar is representing Bob Marley and Reggae

I offer this just to show you the four hot dogs on the table representing another "typical" food of the US.  Also, the kid in the boxing gloves was showing that boxing is a popular sport.
  

The kid who invited me to observe  ( he is pictured above ) is 20 and himself a student but is teaching one of these immersion classes after school and the countries were like a final project.  This kid is amazing...he is very polished, uses very good English tho he does need more time to learn vocab etc.  I got a chance to chat with him and learned that he is the youngest of 4, his older sibling are in their mid 30s, his father is a blacksmith and has a taco stand and his mother is a housewife.  If you met this kid, you'd think he came from a family of college graduates who worked white collar jobs.  He is so self confident and eager to learn.  He is currently completing his application to work as a camp counselor at a summer camp in Houston next summer.  I offered to help in any way but I am sure he has several teachers offering their help.  They all recognize his talents and specialness.