The
first, third, and fourth years are all in PE with me. In this we
mostly work on learning different sports and parts of the body. I try
to reinforce the parts of the body when warming up through stretching
and articular mobility. We learn the muscles and joints and use this
vocabulary in every PE class. On top of that I will plan games around
the themes we are focusing on. It can be a fun game of capture the
flag or just an exercise to reinforce particular skills like passing
in volleyball. PE is a fun way to connect with the kids because the
class is very open.
Technology:
With
third and second years I get to join their technology classes. In
these classes we really work on pronunciation and reading. For the
second years I usually am able to do an activity that is planned by
the teacher or myself and the students complete it all in English.
For the third years we really focused on vocabulary in technology so
we played a lot of games of jeopardy. I made these games and we
played them in class after we had already gone over all the
vocabulary that would show up in the game. This was all good and fun
to see the students challenge themselves and problem solve. An
example of a jeopardy game can be found at this link:
https://jeopardylabs.com/play/structures-432
History:
In
second and fourth I also joined them in history. My main role in
these classes was to assist with reading comprehension and
pronunciation. We did a lot of reading while highlighting key words
and taking note of words that they did not understand. Through this
activity students became more open to participating and were
thoughtful readers. They were also more open to asking questions when
they did not understand something. The teachers did come up with
acitivities to do with the students to reinforce the theme and find a
way for them to more critically think about the topic.
Biology:
My
final class with the first year was biology. The teacher this year
was very on top of creating an activity in English for me to do with
the class. We would do a fill in the blanks, matching, and
identifying parts of a photo. The activity helped them with
vocabulary, pronunciation and reading comprehension because much of
the text coincided with the activities that followed. The students
were very responsive and eager to participate.
My
final advice to the next auxiliar would be to try your best to
connect with the students on whatever level they are at. We can’t
expect all the students to be on the same level, so trying to
understand students' desire to communicate and understand in their
own capacity is important. Also, as an auxiliar, we are in the unique
position that we can help the students to reinforce ideas about class
but do not have to grade them. At the end of the day we are not
teachers and not expected to be teaching the students, so don’t put
too much pressure on yourself and just do the best you can. Our job
is to assist in the classroom with bilingual themes so it is
unnecessary to feel pressure to be perfect. We are all on our own
journey and being your authentic self is the best way to connect and
teach your culture and language.
