Week three was short in regard to the number of days of JumpStart camp. It was not short in regard to milestones achieved. We are now JumpStart CRUSA Sarapiqui. Thanks to CRUSA we are now fully funded. YEAH!!!
We had two full days of English activities last week. We had class from 7:30-3:00 on Monday and Tuesday. Therefore we covered 4 days of curriculum in 2 days. So much new material in such a short period of time proved difficult for the students and me. In fact a few of the students made it quite clear that they were more interested in playing soccer during the breaks than they were in learning English. I discussed the issue with the group. I asked them to consider their reasons for coming to camp before classes resumed again on Monday. Tuesday afternoon, right after class, I jumped on the bus to San Jose to
present at NCTE (National Conference for Teachers of English).
A big shout out to, Randall, the regional English adviser for Sarapiqui. Randall brought us a very tasty and filling lunch on both days. Thank you Randall.
Today we returned to normal, half day, morning classes. Four students were absent. I was told that two will not be returning this week (one due to lack of transportation and the other for personal reasons). Another has been absent various times over the last 3 weeks. The last of the four has not contacted me concerning the absence.
Today I decided to follow the example of another volunteer, Hannah, regarding the breaks during the class. Since I've found it very difficult to supervise the student breaks and prepare the classroom for the next activity at the same time I decided to do away with breaks unless another adult helps with the supervision. Since we didn't have another adult today we didn't have "recreo". The class was much better behaved without the break in between activities. I think Hannah has the right idea. I'm going to continue with this method the rest of the week. It's never too late to try something new. Sometimes the best results come from a last ditch effort. Today was a great day!
