The students I have are about 8 years old and some know some words in English/ numbers but cannot actually relate it to something when they see it. For example I have a girl in my class that can count to 30, but if I showed her a number more than 10 she probably wouldn't recognize it. I am so excited to teach these kids a bit of my language, but the fact that I came here and only have 11 days with the kids and of those days we get 1 day a week and 1 hour that day to teach English.
So Thursday I got to my class and taught the alphabet song, they took out their alphabet cards and we constructed words that I dictated letter by letter. We did some 3 letter words and I would walk around and monitor (something I haven't seen a lot of here) and we did a few challenging words that were longer. We went through the pronunciation of each word and the translation into Spanish. Something that was a review for me was to write in cursive! I did a good job though. I wrote words we did in English, Spanish, and tried to write the pronunciation. It's a bit difficult to think of pronunciation when there isn't a sound like it in their language. 
After I did this in my 3rd grade room I went upstairs and did the same in one of the two 4th grade classrooms. Look at that good cursive!!
I didn't mind this too much and liked having kids motivated and energized to learn, but the structure and organization of the classrooms and lessons are a little bit frustrating. We were told that we would be teaching English to our students at this school, but we were not told that it wouldn't be a lot. These teachers already have a schedule and are fitting English into their schedule now , so we have to work around this. My teacher is working with me to kind of take advantage of having us here and getting the most out of us as she can. However she is telling us what we are teaching without much planning time. I would love to plan a lesson to teach to my kids and use in my class, but with some disorganization the ideas kind of just come up whenever. For example we taught the alphabet last time and will be teaching the verb "to be" next class and not sure what else. Now I would probably do it a different way; alphabet first, colors, numbers, and probably a basic conversation, but I'm going with the flow.
So as this next week approaches I have been talking with the girls in my group and we have all come to similar conclusions. This is not a US school and the organization isn't entirely there, but they do mean well. We are going to hope to give some input on our teaching as well as get an idea/schedule of what we will be asked to teach and when so we can be a little more prepared.
Besides our English teaching classes we have been taking classes at the college and they have gone well. We just finished our teaching English class and have had one class of the history of Peru and one class dealing with the social change and education in Peru. These classes have been very informative and interesting. For our TEFL class we are asked to do a project that we will work on with our kids at Villa Salvador. I chose to practice numbers, colors and already know we are doing the verb to be, so I will have my students do a self portrait when I'm done with the course and describe themselves with 3-4 sentences. It doesn't seem like a lot, but with 9 more class days and not sure of how much time it is more than enough. The rest of the week we spent doing some sightseeing. We went to the centro and the girls did some souvenir shopping and I maintained control!! Oofdah that was a bit tough, now I would like to go back and buy something now.
So our food we have been eating mainly consists of rice, bread and other stretches. I am pretty sure that some clothes might not fit on way back home. :) Well anyway I am not sure what happened but myself and the 2 girls I am staying with had an interesting Saturday. I had eating some Domino's pizza the day before and was thinking that it wasn't setting well with me since I woke up 2 times to go to the bathroom Friday night. I got up and still didn't feel the greatest, but before class I felt better. When we got to class I asked the girl I shared the pizza with how she was feeling and she said never better and I was stumped. Ok so the crazy part was, after class we wanted to get some supplies for our classes so we all walked to the mall to grab some stuff. This is about a 5 minute walk from campus and 10 minutes from our house. The girls that I am staying with and I eventually got our stuff (longest time in a grocery store EVER!!) and walked home. I was wearing a sweatshirt and was swearing profusely. I had to go to the bathroom and the girls told me they did also. Well we had to walk home and the whole way back while swearing and trying not to think of this, all I thought about was Bridesmaids. I was saying please make it home, don't have an accident like that! Hahah embarrassing no?! Well we all did make it home, ran to the bathroom ( I ran downstairs and other 2 upstairs: 1 had to wait) and felt a little relief. Afterwards we had a laugh on how it affected us all at the same time ( but not me, I had it the night before)! We took some medicine and were all cured by that night. This picture sums up how we feel and how the rest of our group feels too. Admit it, it's real life. 
Saturday we went out with our family and chilled and then tonight we did the same. We watched the USA play in the copa mundial and I was so excited when we went up 2-1, but not excited that with 1 second left Portugal tied the game. Argh!!! Hopefully we can stay ahead of them, sorry Ronaldo. Also the girls and I made tacos for our family with homemade guacamole! Scrumptious. 
So I am on my 3rd week here and off to 3 days of teaching and 2 of classes this week. Keep on reading and I'll keep in track of updating! Chau chau
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