SPANISH SUN AT MOHYLKA
Spring takes over our housing estate, but our school Mohylka was pleased not only by the rays of spring sunshine, but also by the warm smile of two teachers who came to us from Zaragoza, Spain. After three days of getting to know our school and garden, our students and teachers, our teaching methods and procedures, the fourth day arrived – D day or, better said, S day. On this day, the roles reversed, and the Spanish teachers took over the reins of teaching. For our Mohylka students, they prepared an interesting program in English about their country, their city, and their school, discovered through a fun quiz with the children what they already know about Spain, showed them photos and videos from Zaragoza, and turned the children into detectives who searched their memory to recall what they remembered from the videos and how it could be named in a common language, English.
But it didn't stop at photos and videos. After the photo of the flamenco dancer, there followed a quick course on basic flamenco moves, accompanied by humorous instructions: "stretch your hand toward the apple tree, pick an apple, look at the apple, bite into the apple, throw the apple on the ground and shout OLÉ!" Fourth and fifth graders, cheered up by the fiery dance movements, moved on to a game of BINGO, where Spanish was spoken instead of English. For each picture on the BINGO grid, they learned its Spanish name, and thus they left the unconventional lesson enriched in many ways: their eyes saw the colors of Spain, their ears heard Spanish music, their hands and feet danced a Spanish dance, and their mouths learned Spanish words.
The rays of the Spanish sun that the teachers brought to us from Zaragoza will warm our hearts for a long time yet.