In the public schools in Mexico they start teaching English in the 7th grade; however, this year they began teaching English in kindergartens, 1st and 2nd grades in some of the schools. My friend, Lety, is a superintendent of some of the preschools and she asked me if I would work with her English teachers before I leave Mexico.
I go with the English teacher to her classes, observe her teaching; sometimes I teach a quick lesson; and then the teachers and I meet in the evening and we discuss their pronunciation, strategies for teaching ESL, materials they can use, and anything in particular that they want to work on. I will work with them until time for me to return home.
Below are pictures of some of the classes.
This is a group of 4 year olds listening to a story. They liked the Clifford book.
The preschools are divided into 3 years and are called: Kinder 1 (3 year olds), Kinder 2 (4 year olds), and Kinder 3 (5 year olds). The Kinder 3 is what we call Kindergarten.
These 3 yr olds are singing and playing a game. In the public schools, uniforms are encouraged but not required. Some schools say "blue shorts or pants and a white top". Sometimes they wear an apron over their clothes which they put on over their clothes after they get to school.
Here you see an example of the apron over the white shirt and blue pants. These kindergarten girls got out the book and sang the song to me. It was a chant of sorts and they knew all the words.
Here teacher Magdalena works with a 5 year old on articles of clothing. Magdalena made all the materials for her lesson, and tapes them to the board. She teaches 3 groups of children in 2 schools. There are between 24 and 31 students in each of her classes.
You can see the water jug behind the teacher. Every classroom has a water jug for the children---no water fountains as the tap water is not purified.
These 3 year olds were learning parts of the body. The teacher asked me to help with the lesson.
In the Kinder 2 class of 4 year olds, they were painting "3" objects because they had just learned the number 3. Although it was rather messy, no one played "swordfight" with the paint brushes and after they finished, they washed out the brushes and return the paints to the shelf.
These are 4 of the English teachers at our meeting.
The public school teachers work under unbelievable conditions. There are often 40-50 students in their class. They teach long hours since there are morning classes and afternoon classes. The preschool and kindergarten classes are only 3 hours long but the elementary school classes are 4-5 hours long.
Magdalena, the teacher you see in the photo above, teaches from 9-noon in the two preschools; then she teaches English in the middle school from 2:00-8:30pm. The teachers also have to make all of the materials they use to teach with. There is no copying machine available to them. If they need copies, they have to go to a store and pay for the copies.
I certainly makes me appreciate what I had to work with in the public schools where I taught.
Hasta luego.
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