Today was our one-week anniversary of teaching, meaning we’ve made the rounds to every student from 3-year-olds to sixth grade, with the exception of fifth-graders who got a free pass last Thursday because of Desfile. For the most part it’s going well, though our “age-appropriate” English books seem to be a bit over-reaching. And, considering the extent of our teaching skills is working as camp counselors and teaching 15 third-graders how to perform I Just Can’t Wait to be King, I’d say we’re not doing too shabby. We’ve made some blunders, of course, but the students already seem to be learning some English words, if not entire phrases.

The hardest ninos to teach are the young ones. Working with second-graders today, we had more-or-less mastered “Hi, my name is,” with the help of a worksheet. But, when we asked them to copy down the three phrases we had written on the bored, the teacher informed us that they’re still working on writing, so they’d be able to copy everything, but wouldn’t necessarily understand what was written. Tricky. I think this is where songs come in.