My name is REEEECHARD, pt. 1

My students call me REEEECHARD. I'm not totally sure how that happened, but it did. I think a combination of my sorry attempts at explaining that I went by "Rick" and the fact that they never understood me when I said "Rick" ended up being my downfall. Honestly though, "Riiiichard" and "Riiichie" have grown on me a little bit.

For this program I was assigned to secondary schools/high schools in San Roque, a rougher neighborhood on the east side of Badajoz, and Alburquerque, a small mountain village about an hour to the north. I've split time between the two schools doing Monday and Tuesday in San Roque and Wednesdays and Thursdays in Alburquerque. I also alternate class schedules every other week to see as many kids as possible, bringing the number of students I see to about 300. On top of all of this, their ages range from 12 to 18 and the skill levels, even in classes of the same age, has been highly variable and a bit of a challenge.

Overall I love the kids. I admit that they were more fun at the beginning of the year when I was still a new commodity, but for the most part I think I got lucky with my groups (except 4B Alburquerque, which will haunt my dreams forever). Most of them liked me from the start, but it's remained consistent that they're generally more interested in me than the subject I'm teaching. Because of this, I've made an effort to make my classes as interesting to them as possible. We've sung songs (the most successful of which was "I've got a feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas), done crosswords, played games like Jeopardy and have practiced directions by turning the classroom into a city map. Because of the low levels of most of the students, vocabulary and pronunciation have been my focuses. I also gave a few lessons topics from slang to drugs to history to globalization. My oldest kids seem to have benefitted the most from what I can see.

I wish I could say my students were always smiling and willing, but that wouldn't be true. They're sometimes a pain and even though there are days when I feel helpless, there is always a hand full of students who are sitting at attention, trying to hear my lessons above the chaos. I also see great potential in a number of those students and that makes everything I do seem worthwhile. In the end, it has been getting to watch individual students, good and bad, that has been the most fun for me.