Dear members of the PAC Program,
Here I send you the comments written by our fantastic PAC teacher, Joe Martin, evaluating his stay with us since his arrival to our school in October 2010. Me, as the English Teacher Coordinator of the PAC program, as well as the other English teachers, I am very grateful to share English teaching daily activities with such a nice person as Joe. He is helping us a lot in the English language classroom in all different levels : Primary and Secondary. The students are strongly motivated and many of them are improving their English a lot. All of us in the school will be really excited to read Joe’s comments on the Website. I know you are not going to publish it until March but I prefer to send it to you right now. Thanks a lot for this nice pioneering experience. You will also find some photographs where Joe is teaching to some 4th ESO students. See you!!!
Eduardo Pardo – English Teacher Coordinator
A photograph of Joe and some students during a lesson
Here is Joe’s letter:
Since arriving here, I’ve been treated like a celebrity! The school has 700 children, so I found it difficult to remember names at first, but everybody knew mine! Everywhere I walked somebody would say ‘Hi!’. Mothers in the street would say ‘Hello!’ and I wouldn’t know who they were. It was a surreal experience!
I’ve been working with children aged 4 to 16, so there are huge differences between one lesson and the next! In some classes I assist in the pronunciation by taking children to the side and gently trying to get them to speak some English and then with the teenage classes I have to stop them talking too much!! However, most students want to learn English, so that makes my job much easier.
I move family every two months and I haven’t had a bad experience so far! All the families have been very welcoming and treat me like part of their family, which has been very enjoyable. I am enjoying Spanish food and have become accustomed to the cultural differences. My Spanish is improving too! Overall, It’s been a very rewarding experience.
JOE MARTIN
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