Alex O'Neal's Blog

For my May Project, I volunteered with St. Louis Language Immersion Schools (SLLIS) at the Spanish School. I spent about two weeks working in one of the kindergarten classes. Since the school was founded, my father has been on the board for SLLIS and I’ve always been interested in how an immersion school works.

In 2009, the first two schools, the French and the Spanish School, started with a few kindergarten classes and every year a new grade was added. Now those schools go all the way up to fifth grade and SLLIS has added a Mandarin School and an International School, which teaches a bilingual education to sixth through eighth graders.

Day 1:

Although I knew what the school was about, walking in on my first day was a little nerve racking. I didn’t really have any idea what I would be doing or how much I was going to be using my Spanish. I would have hated to say something wrong. When I first walked into the classroom, the teacher was standing with his back to me and all the students were sitting in a circle around him. At this point a young woman who was sitting in the comer walked over and introduced herself. She is a senior at Saint Louis University and she is majoring in education. She has been working as a TA for most of the year, but she has only been in my kindergarten classroom for a couple of weeks. It was nice to know that there would be someone else in the classroom to kind of ease me into things.

Lily filled me in on the class’s schedule. In the mornings before I come in, all the kids practice writing Spanish vocabulary words in their notebooks. Then when they finish with that they write stories and then share them with the class. That is what they were doing when I walked in. As soon as they were done with that, Prof. José threw me right into the mix. He handed me a packet that I was supposed to go over with the kids. It was supposed to help them practice their beginning sounds – in English (thank goodness!). Lily worked with some kids and I worked with others.

Afterwards, we went outside for recess. The kids were very curious to meet the new girl. A young, red-headed girl named Evelynn took to me immediately. She told me all about her family, her favorite jokes and we even came up with a secret handshake!

Afterwards we came back inside and the kids had snack. I worked with a few more kids on their beginning sounds and then we all went to art class with Prof. Fabiola. While the children all stood in a circle and played “espejo” (mirror). Meanwhile, Lily and I sat in the room and tried to clean off excess paint from some artwork the students had crated. They are going to be sold at a fundraiser event that Prof. José Manuel is organizing and he wants them to look perfect.

After art, the kids ate lunch and then we went back to the classroom to work on math before ending the day with recess. All the kids seem really smart and well-behaved. I am excited to continue working at the school.

Day 3:

For the past two days, the schedule had been pretty much the same as my first day, except the kids have been taking tests in the computer labs. The entire school takes these tests three times a year to measure where their performance is. Yesterday was the reading and writing test and today was math. It’s really interesting to see what level all the kids are at. They are all so different, and come from all different backgrounds so you really never know what level they are at. Although some of the results were a little skewed. The kids are only 5 and 6, so sitting there and taking a test on the computer that has no visible end can be boring. A few kids started to huff and puff whenever they would hit “next” and another question would pop up. And a few kids would just click at answers randomly without listening to the question first. But overall, the kids did really well. Prof. José Manuel was so proud of his “kiddos” (his words, not mine). He was beaming when he was able to see a sharp rise in the test results. One boy in particular, Gabriel, was really surprising. Gabriel comes from a home where they speak Spanish exclusively and he also has some speech problems. Prof. José Manuel and I were both very impressed when he proved to be one of the most improved students of the day. 

Later on in the day, while the kids had some playtime after lunch, Prof. José Manuel told Lilly and I about his teaching experiences. He is from Mexico and he taught there for many years before coming to the United States. When we asked him whether you like teaching here or in Mexico more he said Mexico: "There is more structure. Here, every state has its own rules and expectations. Back home, across the country all the kids learn all the same things."

You can really tell how much Prof. José loved what he does. He is super supportive of the kids in and out of the classroom. He coached the two soccer teams that the school has and never misses a chance to tell me which kids played well the day before. He's been to Spain, Russia, and France and each time made sure to take some time to visit and observe at a school.

Day 9:

Today was VERY busy. I came in a little early because I knew prof. Needed the extra help. Friday mornings, the entire school comes to the gym for assembly. This Friday, my kindergarten class was performing a dance. So the morning was a tad hectic. The kids all had shirts to wear as costumes for the performance but they were all different colors. Never rely on a 5 year old to remember what color shirt they are supposed to wear. Never. After about 10 different shirt swaps we finally got everybody all dressed. Then we went into the assembly where the rest of the school and their parents were waiting. One student, Nesiah, clung to my hand as we walked in. She is the smallest in the entire class and so, so cute. She was very nervous because prof. chose her to introduce the performance in front of everyone. We had practiced the day before but she was still a little uneasy. Right before she has to go up, she turns to me with their big brown eyes and says will you go up with me? Of course, I had to. So we went up together and she introduced the class's Brazilian dance in English and in Spanish.

The kids performed and they did great! But after all the fun, the real work began.

As I mentioned before Professor Jose Manuel is in charge of the school fundraiser. Which is tomorrow. And there was still a lot to be done. First I had to make posters listing all the prices for the food, then I printed out extra flyers, then I cut and stamped a bunch of tickets. Prof. Was getting calls all day about the event. I think the highlight of his day was when Anheuser-Busch dropped off their donations: 1253 free cans of beer for the event. He kept saying, "I wish you were 21 so that you could come! It's gonna be so fun".

All The money that they raise is going towards getting more technology for the school. As of now there are tablets and the older students can use laptops but they definitely could use more. A lot of the computers are slow and make it hard to get things done.

So far I still really, really enjoy my experience here. I have finally mastered all the kids’ names and can even recognize whose voice is whose. I'm still blown away with how much Spanish they know. All the teachers speak in Spanish most of the time and only use English when it seems like the kids don't understand.

Day 10:

Today we went to the ZOO!!! It was so fun! All the kids were super excited to see the animals. Some parents were chaperones along with Prof. José, Lily, and me. The kids were super happy to have their parents there.

Day 12:

Today was my last day. It was kind of sad, I’m not going to lie. Prof. José was very gracious and offered to pay for my lunch. He also gave me a gift and a card. I spent most of my day just playing with the kids because I knew I was going to miss them. They practiced their new dance that they are going to perform next week - I might go just to see them again. Although this has not convinced me to become a teacher, this experience was really fun and I would do it again in the future.