Latino Language, Pedagogy and Culture Immersion Institute in Puerto Rico

Our day started early with a meeting with some teachers and curriculum supervisors from the town of Rincon. We split into groups according to our content area, so Andrew and I got to talk with the Spanish supervisor. She explained how they are refocusing their Spanish classes in order to increase the students' skills in reading and writing. Puerto Rico is held accountable for the standards of No Child Left Behind just like Pennsylvania is, except they have an extra test for Spanish.

Then we had our very last Spanish class. I will definitely miss having Spanish classes. We learned so much about the language and the culture during these two short weeks.

After lunch we visited the brand new high school building in Mayaguez. After traipsing all around the school in our big group and disrupting the classes to meet the teachers and students, we decided to split into pairs in order to be able to observe some classes in action without being so conspicuous. Michelle and I observed a Spanish class. (It's like how we have English class in high school in the United States.) Seeing how the teacher and students interacted helped me to understand some of the communication habits of my Puerto Rican students in Pennsylvania. We were very fortunate to be able to visit some schools while we were here. It was so informative, and the teachers were very welcoming.

In the afternoon we had a wrap-up meeting to share our project proposals for this course. I enjoyed hearing how each person is going to apply what they learned here to improve instruction and learning in their own schools in Pennsylvania. I think we can make a big impact in our home schools with the knowledge we gained from all of our experiences here.

posted by Jerika at 11:46 PM