Thursday 1st

Parece ser que Montreal es 95% francófono y West Island - donde residimos y asistimos a clase los profes españoles - es el 5% restante, pero la vida normal se rige en francés; la mayor parte de las veces es francés únicamente, como en los buses escolares 

Otras veces la información es bilingüe pero el tamaño de la letra en inglés es, por ley, considerablemente más pequeña, de modo que el idioma que resalte sea el francés

Sigo sin entender la inmersión lingüística para profesores/as de inglés en Montreal...

Classes today:

Grade 7 English (1B) (Period 1 & Period 6)

Today the students worked on their projects for the whole class; Glenn started the class with a reminder of the deadline, October 26th.

This is the project: since they are reading Shakespeare´s "A Midnight Summer´s Dream", the students have to imagine they wake up and had a dream, and then explain that dream.

The written work of the project consists of the following:

• the story outline (1-2 paragraphs)
• the storyboard, describing each scene
• the scripts for the dialogue

Then they have to make a video of their story. In order to do that, they are reminded that they will have to organise dates to meet up and they will have to work outside the classroom - although there will be some time in class for it too. In addition, they have to share or send everything to Mr. Katz so that he can give some feedback.

These are the instructions for the video:

These are some titles of projects: `Fairy Fluster´, `A Midsummer Night´s Videogame Adventure´, `The Killer´

The students were really excited, paid attention to the instructions, discussed things, made plans to meet....I think everybody enjoyed the lesson and the work.

These photos were taken in Period 1:

These photos were taken in Period 6: 

This group was way ahead of the others, they had been working on the project in the library in their free time so their story board was already designed

Hamed, Jerry and Omar had to solve certain disagreements in relation to the story (a pool, a lake? Toronto? San Francisco? bears?)...they could not go past the outline but I had a few laughs

Mr. Katz was free in Period 2 but there was a fire drill - which lasted no longer than 10 minutes. Everything was under control, everybody did exactly what they were meant to do:

Go out, no backpacks - some of them even in their T-shirts

Gather at the courtyard, each class in a row with his/her teacher:

Back into the building:

Grade 9 English (3 IB) (Period 3)

The students worked on their mockumentary projects - most of them were in the classrooms but some were allowed to go to the library. This project is due October 22nd but the students had to send the written work today, including the changes they had made.

The students just LOVE this project (`This is so fun´, `This is going to be so fun´). Everybody is engaged in it. Glenn uses positive language all the time, praises ideas, compliments...

Grade 9 English (3IM) (Period 4)
IM= IMMERSION

These students also worked in their projects, related to the novel "Monster", which are due October 19th. It is a completely different kind of project, much more guided. In fact, today they got back their documents from last week and they needed to write another one, same instructions and layout, before the end of the class.









When I came back from lunch, Glenn and Madison where watching some videos made by the students and having lots of fun.

Grade 8 Ethics (Period 5)

The full name of this subject is Ethics & Religious Culture´(ERC); it is meant to be about religions in general plus ethics and morals but most teachers seem to focus on the ethics part.

The whole period was spent working on the new project, `The Elections Project´

The dateline for the project is October 28th, and they use 5 classes to work on it. The task today was: forming a group and choosing a name for the group. The only part of the project done in paper is the poster (if they do not want to do one on `glogster´). Once again, the students were really engaged

Some groups even found time to design a logo

At the end of the day, as we were leaving, Glenn put his Go-Pro camera on his cap while he got together all his things for his schooltrip to Boston. The students were so excited seeing the camera work

Glenn and Madison always welcome and say goodbye to the kids at the door

Y ahí acabó mi día a nivel escolar, y fui a enfrentarme a algunas de mis "primeras veces" en Montreal: hacer cola y coger el bus. NUNCA veremos algo así en España: esa perfección en la cola, esa linealidad mientras esperan 

y cuando suben al bus

ese respeto al espacio personal, manteniendo las distancias

Y, de vuelta a casa, me dí cuenta de que en algunas calles no hay aceras; la conducción es MUY lenta por estas zonas residenciales, y, por lo que se ve, no son barrios pensados para ir andando. Te bajas del bus en la marquesina y "voilà, à la rue" (inmersión lingüística) 

The weather today: 5ºC-13ºC