"Shame on you"

                It has now been a week since I’ve been in Mexico, and I think I have finally gotten over the culture shock stage.  Or at least that’s what I told myself, until the other day when I ran into a cockroach.  I’m seeing them more often now, but still not over it. Though I am getting used to eating lunch at four.

                Wednesday I started my practicum at UAQ, which is a University about a 40 minute walk from where I live.  I’m teaching at the Engineering College, to two different classes of 20 students.  The first day I just observed the class, and the next couple days I either taught a few mini lessons or helped out with classroom activities.  My mentoring teacher, who is the normal teacher for these classes, is not a native speaker of English.  In fact, believe it or not, he’s a Frenchman.  So, of course, the first time we met, I couldn’t help but speak French.  Who knew I’d get to practice my French in Mexico?  So far he’s been a nice mentoring teacher, and I think we’ll work well together and I’ll learn a lot from him.

To give you an idea of what I observe and his humorous teaching style, at least 20 times each class he will use his favorite phrase, which he has taught me to use with the students as well: “Shame on you.”   If a student forgets their book, makes a stupid mistake, is late to class, etc. he will pull out this phrase without fail each time, making the whole class laugh as he says, “shame on you!”   He will also make students do push-ups in front of the classroom for every word of Spanish they speak (it’s an “English only” class), or for every minute they’re late (10 minutes late is on-time for Mexican culture, but not for the English teacher!)  Wednesday I will be teaching my own lesson for an hour, which will be observed and graded by my professor. Exciting and terrifying at the same time!

La Creperia

Last night one of my housemates and I ventured into town and ate at La Creperia, and ordered crepes. (What? Did you think I wouldn’t find the French places around town?)  Nothing like sitting in a French café, in Mexico, with Britney Spears and other American music playing in the background. 

On the list of other random things I’ve done in Mexico so far is: Learned how to Salsa dance, helped a friend bid on a bottle of Tequila with fake pesos, and met an old Mexican man at a theatre who might have been a famous actor (he met the Mexican President and was once on Broadway).

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, two other students and I have a Mexican Pal who we hang out with for a few hours every week.  It’s a really good way to get in Spanish conversation that isn’t in a classroom.  He takes us to visit a lot of places around town, like the churches (there are so many of them!):

Templo y Convento de la Santa Cruz

My Spanish classroom

Speaking of Spanish, my language class has been going pretty well and I already feel like I’ve improved my Spanish a lot! It’s amazing how quickly you learn and pick things up being immersed in the language.  I’ve only had a few problems in class where my French slips out, but luckily my teacher and classmates understand, so we just laugh.  I’ve noticed it mostly happens with numbers, where I say a French number in a Spanish sentence, and don’t realize it until my teacher gives me a weird look. “Shame on me.”