Practicum Journal Entry

February 7, 2018 – Copán Exchange

Days like today are why I became a teacher. For the past twenty-six years, Ankeny High

School and la Sistema Educativo Copán located just outside of Mexico City have had an

exchange that takes place every year during the spring semester. It has been going on so long that

I took part in it as a student and now I get to be part of it again as a teacher. The way the program

works is that during February, the students from Copán come and stay for two weeks. Teachers

travel with the group so that they are accompanied on the trip. Around spring break, the students

from Ankeny travel and stay with them. Typically, the Ankeny students stay with the person that

they hosted when they are in Mexico. I hosted a student from the school in 2000 when I was in

tenth grade. Unfortunately, I did not travel to Mexico at the time.

The students from Copán attend the school from the time they are in preschool. Before

they begin kindergarten, they have the option of taking a year of English where all of their

classes are entirely in English. During all of elementary school, half of their day is in English and

the other half is in Spanish. Once they get to secondary school, they take English as a class, but

no longer experience immersion style instruction. By the time the students travel to Ankeny as

part of the exchange, their English is very good. As part of their program, they are required to

attend classes with the students they are staying with in addition to creating presentations in

English that they share at two of the middle schools. Eleven of the twenty-two students plus their

instructor Zury were in my classroom for the entire day. My students were the only ones taking

Spanish and the way our schedules work now make it hard to coordinate classes so everyone
could be involved so the other two teachers said that I should just have the students in my room

all day. This was both exciting and very intimidating for me.

We divided the room into four stations and three to four students from Copán worked

with each group of six to seven Ankeny students. The first station was one where the students

showed pictures of their favorite meals that they ate at home. They talked about the difference

between Tex-Mex and authentic Mexican food. They also had student apply the pronunciation

rules that they learned in order to pronounce the names of the foods. They rewarded students

with paletas de cajeta which is something that my school is very much against. During 7th period,

my principal came in as I invited him and all of the students had suckers in their mouths. It was

awkward for me but he seemed very understanding.

The second station was one where they played lotería with cards from the movie Coco

and learned about other Spanish games. At the third station, they learned about famous

celebrities from Mexico. The fourth station seemed to be the most enjoyable. The students did

the Macarena, learned a line dance, and got to watch the instructor Zury show off his skills with

a trompo which is a toy that is like a top and a yoyo combined. It about sports and their favorite

athletes from Mexico.

The day was magical. The students ooh-ed and aww-ed over and over again. They were

so polite and respectful. At the end of the period, there was about ten minutes for questions and

answers. The students asked several questions that surprised the principal when he was in the

room. They asked how the students got here. One of the Mexican students sarcastically replied

that they rode donkeys. They were actually surprised to learn that they could just get on a plane

and come here. Another student asked if they were fluent in Mexican. Another student asked
what they wear when they are in Mexico. During the questions the principal looked at me like he

couldn’t believe that the students didn’t know these very basic things about the world and made

some comment about their questions. I responded that this is why I keep getting upset at our

curriculum meetings where they keep pushing rigor and want vocab based units that last only a

week. I told him that my job should be to help these students to become more open minded, to

understand that we are all human, and to learn from our differences instead of fear them. While I

do my best to incorporate cultural information in every lesson as much as possible, it takes a

backseat to vocabulary acquisition at this time. My personal goal as a teacher is to create a

curriculum that meets the course standards but places the cultural aspects of the language in the

spotlight.