Tuesday, May 10, 2011

May 2011--A new adventure!

Hola! We leave for Costa Rica in 3 days and for all that know me well, you know what my life is like right now! There will be 10 undergraduates, one graduate student--10 female and 1 male, and one other faculty member, Mahnaz Moallem joining me on this adventure. We have some special events planned such as a collaborative event with a UNCG group, the CPI Language Immersion School's 20th anniversary celebration, 2 service learning projects and a pizza party for our families. I'm currently working with the teachers to plan our lessons that we will teach out in the 4 schools. Two of the schools we spend a few days in each.

I am looking forward to seeing the eyes pop and the jaws drop, especially for the students that have never been on an airplane, much less traveled outside of the U.S. I think we have 4 that haven’t flown and 6 that haven’t been out of the U.S.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t continue my Spanish all this year like I planned, but I’m feeling more confident in going into my classes this year. I won't have Rich there to divert the teacher's attention off of the planned lesson. We learned so much about the culture last year and more Spanish by asking questions.

My host families will be the same as last year. If I don't communicate more this year, they will surely think I'm an idiot--what motivation! My silent phase has got to end. When I come home, please only communicate with me in Spanish.

This year, I'm taking my tape recorder to capture more of the students' voices in our discussions. I missed a lot of that last year. Hopefully, I can keep better field notes this year. I was taking in everything in the same way as the students last year, so it was difficult to take the time to write. As I read back over my interview notes and the student blogs, I don't feel that they still capture the depth of learning that occurred on this trip.

Better field notes may be useful in finding donors to sponsor scholarships for future students and faculty, a critical next step in supporting immersion experiences such as this one.

Stay tuned to the students' blogs. They will, without doubt, give you their fresh perspective on being immersed in a Latino culture.