Anyways, my latest amusement is how quickly my students have adapted to me. They know my teaching styles and tactics, and now use them to communicate back to me. Which is good and bad. Communication in general is good but playing dumb is not, haha. In class, whenever I want to ellicit a certain response and the class won't answer, I always give a few false answers first. So I say "What's the weather like today??" Dead silence. Crickets. Okay....is it....cloudy?? NO!! Oh, okay....is it....rainy?? NO!!! Eees essunny!!! There we go. That tactic. I didn't realize how often I do that though until recess today. Approximately ten minutes ago it started snowing. Madrid is not used to seeing snow. I will detail that later. However I go outside during the lunch break and all of the kids have gone batshit crazy running around like they were set on fire. One of my students runs up to me, gives me a hug, and says, "Chelsea!! Ees essunny?? No!! Ees essnowing!!" and runs away.
hahaha....oops. Impressionable youngsters. Meanwhile when I tryyyyy to teach them something, like fun slang, they can't pick it up to save their lives. The other day in class I was trying to teach them the word "suck". In the context of "This CD sucks" because their disc that accompanies their book is scratched and won't work. I spent 20 minutes trying to get them to say English class sucked and they refused. Somehow, actually, by the end of class instead of using the word they were confused and thought that I was saying English sucked. Oh well.
Speaking of slang.....I've also learned that while you can't teach the kids slang, they can pick it up from pop songs, news media, and Paris Hilton's My New BFF (while the show was a total failure in America, Spain MTV loves it). Sometimes this is funny, sometimes it is painful. Please reference my Halloween post about "sexy bampires" before continuing. I realize sexy is a seemingly harmless word but I wouldn't say it to my grandma. Therefore I wouldn't use it with my students to describe anything. They, however, don't have the same opinion. I like to draw vocabulary words on the chalkboard, instead of translating, so I can keep lying to the kids about me not knowing Spanish and I also like doodling. It makes my 4 years of high school seem worth something, haha. Anyways one of the vocab words in my 5th grade class was "have a shower" (once again, damn their British English) So I drew a harmless stick figure in a shower with a happy face. I like to be sarcastic with them because it keeps them on their feet. So I said "there we go, shower! See? He's super cute. I'd date him." And one of the students, always a class clown, yells "jess, Chelsea, he ees bery esexy! Esexy boy!!"
Okay, I'm sorry, what?!? SERIOUSLY? I literally threw my head back and stared at the ceiling for about 20 seconds trying not to laugh and be appaulled at the same time. How the hell do you deal with that anyways? So I decided to ignore it and move on. But he kept saying sexy boy over and over and over. Listening to one of your chubby and overeager students mutter "essexy boy" numerous times is annoying so I decided to throw it back at him, since he seemed to grasp that it was inappropriate, and call HIM the sexy boy. As a nickname. At first it mortified him. Which was good. He actually blushed and shut up for a little bit. But then the class started calling him "essexy" boy and eventually he became proud of it. The next day, I made them make nametags so I could call them out when they were talking rudely. Joan (pronounced yo-an) decided to write "Joan (sexy boy)" on his nametag. Then when I called on him later, he said "eh, Chelsea, jew meessed dees part. See? Joan, essexy boy. Ees eemportan"
As if that wasn't enough, the most annoying girl in the classroom decided if Joan was going to be sexy boy, she wanted to be sexy girl. So her nametag now says "Ikram (sexy girl)". I'm waiting for the nuns to walk by and have holy conniptions for my "essexy" 10 year olds.
Anyways, back to the snow. It's snowing!! :) I wasn't expecting snow. I'm also realllly cold right now, haha. I forgot my warm peacoat at home (intelligently) sooo I'm going to start wearing a sweatshirt and my fleece jacket. That should do. I've been secretly waiting for this moment, though, because up until now Spaniards have already armed their kids with their huge down jackets and furry hoods. I'm waiting to see what they would send with them once it got below 50. No outfit change as of yet, but total panic has stricken my school//Spanish citizens. It usually does not snow in Madrid, so the city is completely unequipped. My teacher told me last year when it snowed Madrid just shut down all of the roads, buses, and trains. Brilliant. I asked if they knew to use salt. She said they prefer to wait until it snows knee-high and use snow plows. She was also dead serious. Right now snowflakes are majestically dancing in the wind, slowly falling and blowing away. The average Madrid citizen is currently power-walking down the street unhappily with an umbrella and a scarf wrapped twice around their entire face. It's kind of like a reverse/upside-down turban. A face turban.
Meanwhile, if you take one step outside of the hustle and bustle of the city into my school, you will discover a completely new scenery from the norm. Usually, during breaks, you will find 40+ 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade boys playing soccer, completely consumed by their imaginary world where they are THE best soccer player in the country and leading Spain to another world cup victory. The girls stand around gossipping, doing hair, or playing tag. Anytime that I am on the playground, I find myself becoming "base" because they think the kids won't hit me to get to the other kids behind me. They're often wrong...a lot. Anyways today every student can be found with their tongues excitedly flying out of their mouths with their heads thrown back at a 45 degree angle and their face scrunched up uglier than a pug's. Apparently a Spanish kid's responses to snow go like this: 1. gasp. 2. scream. 3. flock to window to gawk. 4. run outside and hug your friends eagerly. 5. whiplash your head immediately as hard as possible and wave your tongue around less than gracefully trying to catch as many snowflakes as possible.
So...my playground looks like this, but times 150 students.
I'm gonna go wait and see how long they can last. My guess is about 15 minutes before their natural Spanish nature kicks in and they start complaining about how cold it is. That's my biggest pet peeve. "cold" here is anything below 60 degrees. Last night I went on a walk with Katie for Starbucks and was too lazy to put on shoes, so I wore flip flops. First of all, that's sacrilege in Spain, even when it's warm. But to wear sandals when it is below 60 in Spain is abominable. Old little bitties will literally stop you and tell you numerous things. 1. it is SO COLD outside. 2. how could you not wear shoes? 3. you young people are crazy to not wear shoes because 4. It is SO COLD outside. 5. I'm SO COLD and I have shoes on!!
I told Katie if any old ladies approached us, I was going to have to quickly figure out how to say "listen here you old bird, I know it's cold but I'm lazier than it is cold so thank you for your concert but you're not my mom."
And mom, if you're reading this, I promise I'll probably wear shoes next time. :)
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