Holiday Celebrations!

It's the last week before our holiday break, so we have been talking about holiday traditions here in Sevilla, as well as my Christmas traditions in America! We have had fun learning and discussing our favorite foods, decorations and celebrations while practicing English! I have gathered some photos and videos that have information about Christmas and New Years traditions in America, so I will share them here, I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends! I look forward to seeing you all again next year! ;)

My town, Knoxville, Tennessee, during Christmas! We can see Christmas lights, a star, a tree, a wreath, and people by the street:

Typical American Christmas Dinner:

In America, some people love to decorate their houses with Christmas lights:

New York is very famous for its Christmas decorations:

Christmas Vocabulary Video:

The Night Before Christmas, a children's version of a traditional American Christmas Story:

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!:

Christmas Traditions Video:

Jingle Bells Song!:

And finally, in America our New Years tradition is to watch the "ball drop" in New York when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve. If you are not in New York, you just watch it with family and friends on TV to celebrate the New Year!

Fun and Games with English!

Since arriving this year, it has been a blast figuring out how much English each group of students already knows, and their favorite ways to engage with the language. We have some impressive students at our school! In Social Science 1A and 1B, we have spent some time learning about fruits and vegetables to help build basic vocabulary. We have had lots of fun talking about the healthy foods we like to eat, and what we have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! To review our food vocabulary, we played a Fruits and Vegetables Bingo game. We had so much fun and we definitely know our fruits and veggies now!

I get to work with Physical Education classes 4A and 4B as well as 6A, 6B, and 6C. Typically I will introduce each game that we play in English to see if students can figure out the rules from my descriptions. Sometimes they have questions, but usually they can understand my instructions very well! Each week I try to incorporate at least one game from the United States, especially games that I played as a child to incorporate aspects of my culture into the class. Games that require the students to speak English challenge them physically as well as engaging them with new English vocabulary while having fun! Recently, two favorites have been "Castle Ball" and the "Infinite Hoop Game."

In Castle Ball, there are two teams, each with their own castle. They have to protect their castle while throwing balls to try and destroy the other team's castle. Whoever knocks down the other team's castle first, wins!

The Infinite Hoop Game requires that students stand in a circle holding hands. The goal is to get a hoop all the way around the circle without letting go of their friends' hands, using teamwork skills to help get each student through the hoop successfully. Once they have mastered one hoop, you can always add more!

English Video Round-Up Week 28/11/16

Hello friends! Here are my English video picks for this week. I hope you enjoy!

This week in 5th Grade Social Science we are learning about the constitution, perfect timing with Día de la Constitución coming up on December 6th (in America ours is September 18th)! For this, I shared a video from my childhood. This is a fun song talking a bit about the constitution and sharing the beginning of our constitution in song form:

In 3rd Grade Natural Science we are learning to classify living things! Here is a fun video discussing the difference between living and non-living things:

In 2nd grade we are talking about natural and man-made landscapes. Here is a video I used to engage students in learning about natural landscapes and their vocabulary:

And finally, here is a song that my infantile classes have loved about Christmas! It combines Christmas vocabulary with English words they are already familiar with: the colors! :

Introducing: English Video Round-Up!

The umbrellas and jackets I am seeing around school are telling me that it is finally Autumn here in Sevilla! We are well into the school year now and I have loved getting to know the classes I am teaching.

I am working with a wide variety of subjects including Natural Science, Social Science, Infantil English,  and Physical Education! These topics are very different and each age group has a unique focus, however for most of these classes I have found a good amount of useful videos to help make learning English fun! I have decided that once a week, I will share my favorite English videos that I have used in lessons for that week in an "English Video Round-Up," so that teachers, students, and parents can see what we are learning, access the videos, and have fun practicing English outside of class! Here are the videos I have chosen to share this week:

Fruits and Vegetables Vocabulary (done with 1st grade):

Geography Vocabulary (done with 1st grade):

Balanced diet video discussing the importance of eating healthy food! (done with 3rd grade):

Moon Song (done with 2nd grade):

Tour the United States Song (done with 5th grade):

And finally an *EXTRA* video because this week is Thanksgiving in America! Enjoy!

Meet the 2016-2017 Auxiliar de Conversación, Brandy Wells

Hello to my new friends at Maestra Isabel Álvarez!

I'm Brandy Wells, and I will be the Language and Culture Assistant here for the 2016-2017 school year! I am 25 years old and from Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. I graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2014 with a degree in Spanish and International Business, and a minor in Africana Studies. During my education I was able to study abroad in Barcelona for one semester, and San José, Costa Rica for 5 weeks! Since graduating I have spent time traveling, teaching preschool (ages 2-5) and enjoying life in the states. In my free time I enjoy exercising, traveling, writing, and finding ways of improving my Spanish! I received my TEFL certification last autumn, and decided to apply to the Auxiliar program here in Spain. I was thrilled to receive my placement at CEIP Maestra Isabel Álvarez here in Sevilla, and I am so excited to spend the year working at such a lovely school.

My first week at the school was spent observing my new classes, getting to know students and teachers, and introducing myself to everyone. During my second week I did a presentation (below) to my classes to show them a little bit about my home through the five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch). We talked about what we saw in the pictures, and how my city compares to Sevilla! Thank you for welcoming me into your community, and I look forward to spending the year learning and growing with you all!

Goodbye to Maestra Isabel Alvarez

It is with a heavy heart that I write my final blog post for the school. Last week was full of goodbyes, playing games and having fun after what seems to have been the fastest year of my life. To the students and teachers, good luck with the last month of school. Maestra Isabel Alvarez's school has taught me so much about teaching, Spanish culture, patience, science and life in general. I will miss seeing all of your smiling faces every morning saying "hello teacher." I am now returning to North Carolina to study a Master's in Social Work (MSW) in hopes of working as a school social worker to help students in the future, a career I know this experience will continue to serve me with for years to come. But Sevilla, will always be my "home away from home."

Goodbye to 1A science! Thank you for teaching me to also be curious, ask questions, be imaginative and be creative. Continue to study english, you have such bright futures ahead of you.  

Goodbye to 2B English! Study hard this summer. Thank you for making me laugh every week while you tried your best to say something to me in English. PRACTICE POR FAVOR! 

Goodbye to 2A and my cutest class. Thank you so much for the story about the Alien and all of the drawings. I will take them with me to the U.S. and show them to all my friends and family as a memory forever.

Goodbye to 3A! Viva España! You guys are sooo smart! Keep working hard because I am proud of each and everyone of you.

Goodbye to 3B! (Sorry for it being so sunny and taking the picture outside). Have fun this summer, keep studying english and be good for the next auxiliar next year! 

Goodbye to 4A you are all superstars! I had fun in natural science with you each week, you are the sweetest! 

Goodbye 4B! Great job on your final projects. Good luck with English. Vamos Sevilla FC!

Goodbye to 4C and my nicest class. Sorry we missed so many because of the puentes, but you are all so smart. Keep studying english and working hard. Some of you are so special to me and I will miss you very much in the U.S.

Goodbye to 5A! I learned a lot about teaching english from this class. Thank you for trying hard even though it was early in the morning. Keep working next year for the future auxiliar! Good luck :)

Goodbye to 5B! I have had so much fun in science with you guys this year. You are so sweet and smart! Keep practicing your english this summer, good luck as the oldest in the school next year :P

Goodbye to 5C, even though you weren't always the best behaved I still had a lot of fun in english class with you guys. Great job with Masterchef! Have a good summer crazy people!

Ay Dios Mio! To one of my most talkative classes you will always have a special place in my heart, as a very intelligent class. Good luck in instituto next year! 

Bye to 6B Natural/Social Science. You have an amazing teacher. Thank you for having me in your class and behaving so well. Have a great summer and good luck with instituto next year!

And last but not least goodbye to 6C. Again a special class that I will miss a lot. Good luck in high school you all have very bright futures ahead of you. Everyone has an open invitation to visit me in the U.S. to come see me whenever they can in the future :)

In Dublin's Fair City

This past weekend I went to Dublin, Ireland for the first time. While there I also visited the Cliffs of Moher, the city of Galway and a small town along the Irish Sea, Dun Laoghaire which was made famous in the film P.S. I love you.

Fast Facts:
Ireland has approx. 4 million inhabitants, but most Irish people are spread out in the United States, Australia and other countries due to the mass exodus during the Potato Famine.

The Potato Famine happened in 1845 - 1855 and more than one million people died over the course of 10 years.

The Irish language (Gaelic) is mandatory and taught in primary schools as a second language to English.

It takes approximately 2.5 hours to drive across the island from East to West.

Dublin holds the headquarters to Google, LinkedIn, Airbnb and many other big American companies as a gateway into Europe because of the tax breaks Ireland offers as well as providing many jobs to Dublin's economy.

The most famous song in Dublin is based on a fictional woman called Molly Malone.

Molly Malone Song!

Spring Party: Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland is now a world famous children's novel. It makes me happy to know that the same books and movies that I grew up with are now being learned by the next generation in Spain. The story goes that Alice chases the White Rabbit and falls through a rabbit hole where she steps into the magical world of "Wonderland" where she meets characters such as the Duchess, the Chesire Cat, the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts included with perpetual tea parties, executions from the King, many animals and Alice waking up to realize it was all a dream.

An 1865 classic along with its sequel Through the Looking Glass original children's books have now been made into several versions of stories, disney movies, and cartoons.

This past week I got to go with 2A to paint flowers to decorate the school for the spring party today.
Thank you to the mothers who organized the craft and the event, it was a lot of fun for all the children today.