Coming to an end

As my time here comes to an end I realize I have not wrote anything about the school/classroom itself.  I had started many times to write something, but never finished.  Well, guess now is the time.

My fifth grade classroom has 17 students in from 6 different countries.  There are many more countries represented throughout the entire fifth grade.  I have one student from Israel, four students from China, seven students from Italy, three students from the US, one student from Hungary, and one student from Canada.  All of these students are at various levels of learning English; some of them have learned it their whole life and are "Mother Tongue" English speakers, as opposed to one of my students who just started learning English in September when she arrived at this school.  On top of these students being from various countries, many of them have lived in more than two countries.

Having students from many different countries brings a unique aspect to the classroom.  Students are able to share their countries and cultures with the class.  One example is during snack time students bring all different snacks to eat, sometimes it is something from their country, and they are more than willing to share their snacks with their peers and even the teachers.  One example of this is a snack that all of the Chinese students bring in frequently, duck tongue.  The students were a little hesitant to try it the first time, but since then they are asking all the Chinese students for duck tongues.  I even tried it and it was pretty good!  Things like this really bring the class together and let the students realize many more cultures in the country.

This has been a fabulous experience for me because I have been able to be exposed to many more cultures.  It has also been great to see how a classroom, with so many different cultures and language levels can work together every day.  It has been a great learning experience as a teacher and feel that I am very prepared to work with students of varying English language levels.  I think this experience has also helped me think of many different ways to teach my students about various cultures, because I think that is very important.

I am really going to miss these kids when I leave and am so grateful for everything they have taught my about their countries, cultures, and myself as a teacher!