{"id":280,"date":"2011-03-29T11:24:23","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T09:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/?p=280"},"modified":"2011-04-20T13:09:04","modified_gmt":"2011-04-20T11:09:04","slug":"escola-infant-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/2011\/03\/29\/escola-infant-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Escola Infant Jes\u00fas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Molly Crane is a Conversation Assistant at Escola Infant Jes\u00fas (Barcelona). She is helping teachers in both primary and secondary school, and doing really well so far.<\/span><\/p>\n

We thank her and her tutor N\u00faria for writing to us about Molly’s experience!<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My name is Molly Crane-Newman and I am 19 years old, I was born in San Francisco California and have lived in Dublin since I was 2 years old. I finished school 2 years ago and then went on to study Journalism in college.<\/p>\n

I came to Barcelona on Sunday the 26th<\/sup> of September this year to start working as an English teacher the following day in Infant Jes\u00fas. It was my first time in Barcelona, I didn\u2019t speak Catalan or Spanish and did not know one person upon arrival, so as you can imagine I was very nervous!<\/p>\n

\n

I am staying with three families over the course of nine months. I left my first family at the end of the first term. I was living a stone\u2019s throw from the school and living with a three year old and a ten month old. As the little boy was so young we didn\u2019t practise English during \u2018homework time\u2019 as he is in P3 and isn\u2019t given any homework, so we would play games etc. and myself and his parents would speak in English (as I don\u2019t speak Catalan!) and he began to pick up a little vocabulary. I now collect him once a week from school and stay for a few hours playing and talking in English!<\/p>\n

\n

Up until this term I had been working with children 5-12 years old. With the smaller ones (so up until 3rd<\/sup> grade) I took groups of 4-5 out of class and we practised role plays in English (Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs) and they absolutely loved it. Their scripts were tiny and it took a few classes to get some pronunciation but it\u2019s a really lovely activity and I\u2019ve even over heard them practising in the playground! With 3rd<\/sup> and 4th<\/sup> grade I also took them out in groups and most days we did little side activities related to what they were doing in class at the time. So one week for instance it was numbers, and a few weeks before it was the alphabet. With the 5th<\/sup> and 6th<\/sup> graders (who I still have this term) I have divided them into groups based on their level of English as a few of the children are practising English outside of school and their communication skills are amazing whereas some of the children will not speak a word. I have \u2018The Badgers\u2019 \u2018The Monkey\u2019s\u2019 and \u2018The Wolves\u2019 and then at the beginning of class I\u2019ll take one group for a half an hour and then another for the last half hour. I come up with different ideas of what to do with each group and I can then use the same activity with the rest of the classes.<\/p>\n

\n

This term I started with 1st<\/sup> and 2nd<\/sup> of ESO. They are very enthusiastic and I haven\u2019t had any problem with bad behaviour (which I was nervous about!), the only problems I\u2019ve had is the occasional shy pupil but after a few classes they open up a bit! The teachers I work with from ESO have helped me with my materials and basically what we\u2019re doing is conversation related to what they\u2019re studying in class at the moment. This week for 1st <\/sup>of ESO it is school (so favourite subjects\/sports activities etc) and with 2nd<\/sup> of ESO, sports (teams they support, sports they play themselves etc.) I start off with a few questions, and then they complete a role-play activity related to the topic and the activity is finished with a picture description (again all related to the topic we\u2019re discussing). They seem comfortable with the activity and I think it\u2019s a great way to get them talking!<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Working in Infant Jes\u00fas is amazing. Everybody has been so welcoming and friendly and I feel so lucky to have been given this opportunity. Moving to a different country for the first time is terrifying but I really could not be less scared at this point.. Of course it\u2019s still difficult meeting new people and learning the language but everyday it gets a little bit easier and I\u2019m meeting some really lovely people who I know I will remain in contact with. I have fallen in love with the city and intend to stay here for a few years. I would absolutely recommend this to anybody who has an interest in teaching it is a fantastic experience.<\/p>\n

\n

Molly Crane Newman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molly Crane is a Conversation Assistant at Escola Infant Jes\u00fas (Barcelona). She is helping teachers in both primary and secondary school, and doing really well so far.<\/p>\n

We thank her and her tutor N\u00faria for writing to us about Molly’s experience!<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"My name is Molly Crane-Newman and I am 19 years old, I was born in San Francisco California and have lived in Dublin since I was 2 years old. I finished school 2 years ago and then went on to study Journalism in college.<\/p>\n

I came to Barcelona on Sunday the 26th of September this year to start working as an English teacher the following day in Infant Jes\u00fas. It was my first time in Barcelona, I didn\u2019t speak Catalan or Spanish and did not know one person upon arrival, so as you can imagine I was very nervous!<\/p>\n

\n

I am staying with three families over the course of nine months. I left my first family at the end of the first term. I was living a stone\u2019s throw from the school and living with a three year old and a ten month old. As the little boy was so young we didn\u2019t practise English during \u2018homework time\u2019 as he is in P3 and isn\u2019t given any homework, so we would play games etc. and myself and his parents would speak in English (as I don\u2019t speak Catalan!) and he began to pick up a little vocabulary. I now collect him once a week from school and stay for a few hours playing and talking in English!<\/p>\n

\n

Up until this term I had been working with children 5-12 years old. With the smaller ones (so up until 3rd grade) I took groups of 4-5 out of class and we practised role plays in English (Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs) and they absolutely loved it. Their scripts were tiny and it took a few classes to get some pronunciation but it\u2019s a really lovely activity and I\u2019ve even over heard them practising in the playground! With 3rd and 4th grade I also took them out in groups and most days we did little side activities related to what they were doing in class at the time. So one week for instance it was numbers, and a few weeks before it was the alphabet. With the 5th and 6th graders (who I still have this term) I have divided them into groups based on their level of English as a few of the children are practising English outside of school and their communication skills are amazing whereas some of the children will not speak a word. I have \u2018The Badgers\u2019 \u2018The Monkey\u2019s\u2019 and \u2018The Wolves\u2019 and then at the beginning of class I\u2019ll take one group for a half an hour and then another for the last half hour. I come up with different ideas of what to do with each group and I can then use the same activity with the rest of the classes.<\/p>\n

\n

This term I started with 1st and 2nd of ESO. They are very enthusiastic and I haven\u2019t had any problem with bad behaviour (which I was nervous about!), the only problems I\u2019ve had is the occasional shy pupil but after a few classes they open up a bit! The teachers I work with from ESO have helped me with my materials and basically what we\u2019re doing is conversation related to what they\u2019re studying in class at the moment. This week for 1st of ESO it is school (so favourite subjects\/sports activities etc) and with 2nd of ESO, sports (teams they support, sports they play themselves etc.) I start off with a few questions, and then they complete a role-play activity related to the topic and the activity is finished with a picture description (again all related to the topic we\u2019re discussing). They seem comfortable with the activity and I think it\u2019s a great way to get them talking!<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Working in Infant Jes\u00fas is amazing. Everybody has been so welcoming and friendly and I feel so lucky to have been given this opportunity. Moving to a different country for the first time is terrifying but I really could not be less scared at this point.. Of course it\u2019s still difficult meeting new people and learning the language but everyday it gets a little bit easier and I\u2019m meeting some really lovely people who I know I will remain in contact with. I have fallen in love with the city and intend to stay here for a few years. I would absolutely recommend this to anybody who has an interest in teaching it is a fantastic experience.<\/p>\n

\n

Molly Crane Newman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.escolacristiana.org\/pac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}