Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Another meeting with Dominican Teachers
Yesterday afternoon we had another opportunity to meet with three Dominican teachers who are part of a program called Center for Excellence in Teacher Training. It is a professional development program funded by the US government. We're going to learn more about CETT next week. We had a wonderful question and answer session about curriculum, class size, special needs students, salaries, book resources, standardized testing, and funding. We found out the Dominican public schools have three sessions each day...morning, afternoon and evening (for students 15 or older) with each session being 4 hours. Students attend only one, but some teachers teacher more than one. We also learned that the grade level structure includes Inicial (ages 5-6), Basico (grades 1-8), and Medio (4 years of high school). Private schools start teaching children as young as 2 years old. It was such an interesting meeting and we were all very impressed with the professionalism and enthusiasm of the teachers. Teachers in the DR have very few resources and their pay is about $200 American dollars a month for one 4 hour session. Today we are visiting a private volunteer organization that attempts to help the street children in the DR. Should be very interesting and maybe a little sad. More soon...
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Back to class...
After a wonderful weekend...Saturday in the mountains at Jarabacoa and Sunday at Sosua Beach...we returned to classes on Monday. At lunch time we had the opportunity to meet with a large group of Dominican public elementary school teachers who were on campus for a math professional development day funded by US Aid. We had a question and answer session with the coordinator of the Dominican group translating for us. We found out the the Dominican students are in school for 4 hours a day and there are two sessions each day. Their text book resources are very limited and few had computers in their classrooms. The teachers expressed a lot of frustration with the lack of government support for public education. Many families with enough financial resources opt to send their children to private schools. Most schools do have libraries, although we have learned that their are no public libraries in the DR. Tomorrow we are going to visit a volunteer organization that attempts to help the street children. We have lots of homework so I'll say goodbye for now...more soon!
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Weekend Activities 7-20 to 7-22
Holal mis amigos,
Two weeks have passed and my ear is more atuned to the Spanish language. It is such a good feeling to be more comfortable with Spanish. I can even understand the older folks who speak in a more garbled tone.
Friday we took a trip to see the local hospital. A hospital is a public facility, where a CLINIC is private for the people with money. The hospital sees over 800 persons a day. The public pharmacy fills prescriptions for under 32 pesos or one dollar. It was much nicer that I thought it would be unless we just saw the better parts on our tour. It was fairly clean, with many medical students where majority of the medical students are woman. It has a small, new dialysis and neonatal center. Rotary Club international is a large supporter of this facility.
In the afternoon we went to an orphanage. These children have parents but they are unable to take care of them. The house originally belonged to a Drug Lord who is now in jail. The home is gorgeous with large columns, thick mouldings , modern kitchen and a large pool. It was donated without any arrangements for maintenance so they are always looking for donations from private organizations. The kids are soooo sweet, clean, animated and happy! They all go to school and church every day. They might see their parents once a month. We brought along laundry soap that was requested, small toys, cookies and lollipops. I gave them a soccer ball with IDOL Industries branded on it, from Charlie, that we all signed. We are going to ADOPT this orphanage as our Legacy project from our group. Of course, I sang and danced with the kids and staff. I brought along a CD that I use in the classroom. What fun! A tooty Ta! A Tooty Ta! A Tooty Ta Ta!
Yesterday we went to a Ranch in the mountains of Jaraboacoa. We took a Jeep ride through the village then hiked to a waterfall and had a Presidente light cerveza. After lunch I went horse back riding with a group of 12 to another waterfall. Each of us had a boy ride with us as our guide. They were 11 to 15 yrs. of age. My house mate, Janet, fell off of her horse.. She was riding solo and faster than the group. She needed one stitch and is scraped from her shoulder to knee on her left side. OUCH!!
Today is our fist trip to a beach in Sosoua on the north coast. I am looking forward to relaxing day or reading and napping!
Adios for now,
LISA
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
Two weeks have passed and my ear is more atuned to the Spanish language. It is such a good feeling to be more comfortable with Spanish. I can even understand the older folks who speak in a more garbled tone.
Friday we took a trip to see the local hospital. A hospital is a public facility, where a CLINIC is private for the people with money. The hospital sees over 800 persons a day. The public pharmacy fills prescriptions for under 32 pesos or one dollar. It was much nicer that I thought it would be unless we just saw the better parts on our tour. It was fairly clean, with many medical students where majority of the medical students are woman. It has a small, new dialysis and neonatal center. Rotary Club international is a large supporter of this facility.
In the afternoon we went to an orphanage. These children have parents but they are unable to take care of them. The house originally belonged to a Drug Lord who is now in jail. The home is gorgeous with large columns, thick mouldings , modern kitchen and a large pool. It was donated without any arrangements for maintenance so they are always looking for donations from private organizations. The kids are soooo sweet, clean, animated and happy! They all go to school and church every day. They might see their parents once a month. We brought along laundry soap that was requested, small toys, cookies and lollipops. I gave them a soccer ball with IDOL Industries branded on it, from Charlie, that we all signed. We are going to ADOPT this orphanage as our Legacy project from our group. Of course, I sang and danced with the kids and staff. I brought along a CD that I use in the classroom. What fun! A tooty Ta! A Tooty Ta! A Tooty Ta Ta!
Yesterday we went to a Ranch in the mountains of Jaraboacoa. We took a Jeep ride through the village then hiked to a waterfall and had a Presidente light cerveza. After lunch I went horse back riding with a group of 12 to another waterfall. Each of us had a boy ride with us as our guide. They were 11 to 15 yrs. of age. My house mate, Janet, fell off of her horse.. She was riding solo and faster than the group. She needed one stitch and is scraped from her shoulder to knee on her left side. OUCH!!
Today is our fist trip to a beach in Sosoua on the north coast. I am looking forward to relaxing day or reading and napping!
Adios for now,
LISA
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Mas de las clases...
So, it's been almost two weeks and I guess I can safely say that we are in a routine now. Classes are a lot of work. We have a 9-11am Spanish grammar class, a 11-1pm Spanish culture and history class, another 2-4pm Spanish grammar class, and a 5-7pm Sociology/Psychology of Bilingualism class (in English, thank god!). We are definitely working hard for these nine credits, that's for sure!
The grammar classes are interesting because I am as fascinated in learning how she teaches as well as what she teaches. The way she addresses all four language modalities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and separates the work she gives by our levels of proficiency inspire me to do the same in my classes (I especially liked the listening exercise she did where we had to fill in the words to the song we were listening to). I feel for Prof. Perez though because it is a LOT of work to prepare three different levels of classwork/tests/homework assignments etc.
The culture class...has the potential to be great, but is sometimes more frustrating than great. The professor loves the subject of DR's history and it shows in his body language but because most of us struggle to understand all of the content in Spanish, it is lost. (Again, the connection of how our students feel in the classroom when trying to learn about the American Revolution when they don't understand English...not easy.) I find myself wanting to know more and ask more questions because I want learn more but miss/don't understand much of what he says that I find that I 'tune out' after a while. It really is a shame, I am learning lots of general stuff about the problems between Haiti and the DR, about a dictator named Trujillo and his reign over DR, and even about the current president of DR who wants to make this place a "little Nueva York" supposedly, but I know that I haven't understood everything he is sharing with us.
Dr. Nero's class is going great, mainly because I think many of us are happy to have a time where we can express ourselves in English for a change! We seem to run out of time often but only because we get caught up discussing the readings and comparing our experiences to the theory. We've also been sharing our journals in class and it has been interesting to hear how people have been feeling/what they've been thinking during our time down here.
Well, that's about it regarding classes for now...can't believe we're almost half way done!
Chetal
The grammar classes are interesting because I am as fascinated in learning how she teaches as well as what she teaches. The way she addresses all four language modalities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and separates the work she gives by our levels of proficiency inspire me to do the same in my classes (I especially liked the listening exercise she did where we had to fill in the words to the song we were listening to). I feel for Prof. Perez though because it is a LOT of work to prepare three different levels of classwork/tests/homework assignments etc.
The culture class...has the potential to be great, but is sometimes more frustrating than great. The professor loves the subject of DR's history and it shows in his body language but because most of us struggle to understand all of the content in Spanish, it is lost. (Again, the connection of how our students feel in the classroom when trying to learn about the American Revolution when they don't understand English...not easy.) I find myself wanting to know more and ask more questions because I want learn more but miss/don't understand much of what he says that I find that I 'tune out' after a while. It really is a shame, I am learning lots of general stuff about the problems between Haiti and the DR, about a dictator named Trujillo and his reign over DR, and even about the current president of DR who wants to make this place a "little Nueva York" supposedly, but I know that I haven't understood everything he is sharing with us.
Dr. Nero's class is going great, mainly because I think many of us are happy to have a time where we can express ourselves in English for a change! We seem to run out of time often but only because we get caught up discussing the readings and comparing our experiences to the theory. We've also been sharing our journals in class and it has been interesting to hear how people have been feeling/what they've been thinking during our time down here.
Well, that's about it regarding classes for now...can't believe we're almost half way done!
Chetal
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Ok guys bare with me. This is my first time blogging. Its so nice how we can capture everyone's thoughts into one site! It's a little difficult for me because I'm reading everything in Spanish. I read so slow! Ifeel like I am truly getting the experience. Within a week I learned more about my culture than I already know. For example, people from the north use different words than people from the south and the different pronounciations of words. It's so interesting to learn about my culture, pros and cons, but I'm loving it!
La casa de Lisa y Janet
Here are some pictures of one host family's house, neighborhood, and Lisa's bedroom in the house. We'll post other homes soon...
Presidente...es nuestra cerveza favorita
We just had to show you this picture of Lisa and me drinking our first Presidente. When it's hot there's nothing like a cold beer and they DO serve it cold here.
Besos xxoo
Leslie and Lisa
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